Duration of the whistling glandular fever
The Pfeiffersche glandular fever is particularly contagious particularly in the so-called incubation period. The incubation period is the period from the beginning of the infection with the virus until the appearance of the first symptoms. Since patients often do not know that they are carrying the virus at this time, most of the pathogen transmissions occur during this period.
The incubation period for Pfeiffer’s glandular fever is usually about two to six weeks. In contrast to other infectious diseases this is quite long. More about the duration on our page Duration of the Pfeiffer glandular fever
How long is Pfeiffer’s glandular fever contagious?
As soon as one is infected with the Epstein Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, the incubation period begins. This is defined from the time of infection until the outbreak of the disease. In the case of Infectious Mononucleosis, the incubation period can last from one to several weeks.
Although no clinical symptoms are yet noticeable, one is still contagious for the environment in which one is staying. The transmission route is via highly infectious saliva, which contains a high number of viruses. From the beginning of the incubation period, the infected person is therefore contagious, without the people around him/her knowing that you are infected.
During the disease you are still a source of infection and this even for weeks after the whistling glandular fever has healed. These periods of the non-obvious disease are therefore particularly dangerous, since the fellow men are not deterred by clinical symptoms. All in all, Pfeiffer’s glandular fever is a highly contagious disease from the time of infection until several weeks later.
That is why almost all people have been infected with the virus once in their lives at the age of 40. With humans with a healthy immune system an infection with the virus takes place once. The virus then infects the B-lymphocytes of a human and remains in them.
However, the immune system controls the virus so that it cannot multiply and break out. In rare cases, for example in severe immune deficiency, a new outbreak can occur in the form of whistling glandular fever or as oral hair leukoplakia, the whitish, non-strippable coatings on the edges of the tongue. In addition, a chronically active form can develop very rarely, in which the symptoms of the disease persist for more than three months.
