title: Incubation period and other features of food-borne and water-borne outbreaks of typhoid fever in relation to pathogenesis and genetics of resistance.
abstract: Examination of the incubation period of typhoid fever, the attack rate, and the spread of the case-onset pattern in food-borne and water-borne outbreaks and in experimental infections indicates that typhoid fever arises when organisms invade the circulation by at least two mechanisms--as a result of either the net growth of invading organisms at an early stage or a breakdown in host cellular mechanisms later. The distribution of case-onset patterns suggests that a small number of genes, possibly a single gene, controls host resistance in the early phase. The occurrence of bimodal or even trimodal case-onset patterns in a population exposed to infection by a particular dose of organisms reveals differences in genetic resistance within the population.
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001769:Blood / Q000382:microbiology; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005516:Food Microbiology; D005796:Genes; D006801:Humans; D008145:Louisiana; D008875:Middle Aged; D008877:Middle East; D012485:Salmonella typhi / Q000254:growth & development* / Q000472:pathogenicity; D014435:Typhoid Fever / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000209:etiology / Q000276:immunology*; D014774:Virulence; D014871:Water Microbiology