In medicine, the window period for a test designed to detect a specific disease (particularly infectious disease) is the time between first infection and when the test can reliably detect that infection. In antibody-based testing, the window period is dependent on the time taken for seroconversion.
The window period is important to epidemiology and safe sex strategies, and in blood and organ donation, because during this time, an infected person or animal cannot be detected as infected but may still be able to infect others. For this reason, the most effective disease-prevention strategies combine testing with a waiting period longer than the test's window period.
Famous quotes containing the words window and/or period:
“The figure of the gunman in the window was inextricable from the victim and his history. This sustained Oswald in his cell. It gave him what he needed to live. The more time he spent in a cell, the stronger he would get. Everybody knew who he was now.”
—Don Delillo (b. 1926)
“Stupid word, that. Period. In America it means “full stop” like in punctuation. That’s stupid as well. A period isn’t a full stop. It’s a new beginning. I don’t mean all that creativity, life-giving force, earth-mother stuff, I mean it’s a new beginning to the month, relief that you’re not pregnant, when you don’t have to have a child.”
—Michelene Wandor (b. 1940)