pandemic

Examples of pandemic in the following topics:

• Current Epidemics

  • An epidemic may be restricted to one location; however, if it spreads to other countries or continents and affects a substantial number of people, it may be termed a pandemic.
  • In the 20th century three influenza pandemics occurred, each caused by the appearance of a new strain of the virus in humans, and killed tens of millions of people.
  • An avian strain named H5N1 raised the concern of a new influenza pandemic after it emerged in Asia in the 1990s, but it has not evolved to a form that spreads easily between people.
  • The World Health Organization officially declared the outbreak to be a pandemic level 6 on 11 June 2009.
  • However, the WHO's declaration of a pandemic level 6 was an indication of spread, not severity; the strain actually having a lower mortality rate than common flu outbreaks.

• Ecology, Epidemiology, and Evolution of Pathogens

  • For infectious diseases, it helps to determine if a disease outbreak is sporadic (occasional occurrence), endemic (regular cases often occurring in a region), epidemic (an unusually high number of cases in a region), or pandemic (a global epidemic).
  • An animation of the plague that spread through the world during the pandemic in the 14th century.

• Occurrence of a Disease

  • Outbreaks may also refer to endemics that affect a particular place or group, epidemics that affect a region in a country or a group of countries, and pandemics that describe global disease outbreaks .

• Emergence of Viral Pathogens

  • When this happens with influenza viruses, pandemics might result.
  • If this new virus causes illness in people and can be transmitted easily from person to person, an influenza pandemic can occur.

• Emerging and Reemerging Infectious Diseases

  • Between November 2002 and July 2003, an outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong nearly became a pandemic, with 8,422 cases and 916 deaths worldwide (10.9% fatality), according to the World Health Organization (WHO).
  • For comparison, the fatality of influenza is usually under 0.03% (primarily among the elderly), but rose to 2% during the most severe pandemic to date.

• Disease Reservoirs and Epidemics

  • An epidemic may be restricted to one location; however, if it spreads to other countries or continents and affects a substantial number of people, it may be termed a pandemic .
  • The World Health Organization declared the new flu strain H1N1 as a pandemic in June 2009.

• The Vocabulary Epidemiology

  • A pandemic is an epidemic of infectious disease that has spread through human populations across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or even worldwide.
  • Compare and contrast the following concepts: epidemic, endemic, pandemic; incidence vs prevalence; morbidity vs mortality; incubation, latency, acute, decline and convalescent periods