At the beginning of 2020, everyone began to closely follow the events taking place in China. Namely, after the celebration of the Chinese New Year, news publications were full of notes about the mass incidence of a previously unknown disease. Some time later, the term “epidemic” was applied to this outbreak, and after a while the name was changed to “pandemic”. So what’s the difference?
Epidemic
Everyone knows about seasonal diseases. But, first of all, this is known, expected and assessed by the risks of an outbreak at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It is a sharp jump, exceeding the expected number of cases in a particular region, that is called an “epidemic”. The key word here is “in this region”, which means non-proliferation beyond its borders throughout the country, and even more so to other countries.
Vivid examples of the epidemic are: severe acute respiratory syndrome in Vietnam and Hong Kong in 2003, Ebola in Guinea in 2014, Zika virus in South and Central America in 2015.
Pandemic
Accordingly, if the number of cases is growing at a rapid pace, and cases of the disease have been recorded not only in other regions, but also in countries, that is, in most of the world, then this type of spread is considered to be a “pandemic”. This is the most dangerous form of the spread of the disease. In this case, each person is considered to be at high risk of infection.
The most famous cases of a pandemic are: plague, smallpox, cholera, typhoid, influenza and others. Most often, these diseases led to death, which led to a large loss of the planet’s population.
- Sources of
- Wikipedia – Severe acute respiratory syndrome.
- Wikipedia – Zika virus.
- World Health Organization – Origin of the 2014 Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic
- Wikipedia – Epidemic.
- Wikipedia – Pandemic.