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Until World War II the only clinical phenotype of Plasmodium vivax generally recognised in medicine was one associated with either a long (8–9 months) incubation period or a similarly long interval between initial illness and the first relapse. Long-latency P. vivax 'strains' were the first in which relapse, drug resistance and pre-erythrocytic development were described. They were the infections in which primaquine radical cure dosing was developed. A long-latency 'strain' was the first to be fully sequenced. Although long-latency P. vivax is still present in some parts of Asia, North Africa and the Americas, in recent years it has been largely forgotten. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]