What is an Outbreak, epidemic and pandemic in COVID-19
If you have been following the news lately or even using social media, then you must have come across the words outbreak, epidemic and pandemic. Tough everyone is using these words very frequently due to COVID-19, we are also using these inaccurately very often. Due to the similarity of these words and their meanings, the confusion is inevitable.
Let us take a look at , "What is an outbreak, epidemic and pandemic in COVID-19 and how are they different."
OUTBREAK
A disease outbreak is the occurrence of disease cases in excess of normal expectancy. The number of cases varies according to the disease-causing agent, and the size and type of previous and existing exposure to the agent. 3MEDS
A disease outbreak can occur due to an infection (human to human/ animal to human) or due to exposure to a chemical/ radioactive substance or even an unknown source (as happened with COVID-19, till the discovery of SARS CoV-2)
The outbreak of COVID-19 occurred in Wuhan city of China. On 'December 31, 2019' Wuhan Municipal Health Commission, China, reported a cluster of cases of pneumonia in Wuhan, Hubei Province. At this point it was an outbreak because of unusual pneumonia cases and also because of the anonymity of it's cause.
Epidemic and pandemic is often confused as the next levels of an outbreak, which is a wrong notion. An outbreak is considered as an epidemic or pandemic based on the severity of the outbreak.
EPIDEMIC
Epidemic and Pandemic are often confused with each other due to absence of any internationally set standard. A disease is considered to be an epidemic when it affects many people at the same time, and spreads from person to person in a community or a small geographical area. . The 'demic' part of epidemic comes from the Greek dêmos, “people of a district.
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Humanity has seen several epidemics since it's origin, some of them are: Spanish Flu, AIDS, H1N1 Flu, Influenza, Ebola etc. COVID-19 was not declared a pandemic till March 11, 2020 even after several cases of COVID-19 cases had been found in several countries before that day. Many of the mentioned diseases became a pandemic in later period but some of them remained an epidemic. One such example is Ebola. Ebola remained an epidemic as it spread within the continent of Africa only.
If we go by WHO standards the COVID-19 was an epidemic since it's outbreak till March 11, 2020. An epidemic is not simply a disease that spreads in a confined region. Humanity has experienced the Cholera epidemic several times, it's outbreak would start in a small area from a contaminated water source and it soon would spread to a larger area resulting in an epidemic. A disease may spread across a continent and still be an epidemic because of clusters of affected people being confined to a small geographical area of different countries/continents.
PANDEMIC
When a disease is considered a pandemic, it clearly indicates the severity of the disease and it's spread across several countries and continents. The WHO more specifically defines a pandemic as “a worldwide spread of a new disease.” Pandemic might have originated from the Greek pándēmos, “common, public” (Pangea was a supercontinent that incorporated almost all of earth's land masses in early geoligic time).
The COVID-19 was declared a pandemic on March 11, 2020 and considered a 'Public Health Emergency Of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organisation (WHO). By then one million people had been infected and 4,300 had died worldwide. The declaration of pandemic increased alarm among people and also increased the preparedness of the country, health organisations and people. 3MEDS ( online medicine delivery 24 hours )
Epidemic and pandemic is not an indicator of severity of a disease, it merely indicates the area of the disease outbreak. After COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic a lot of countries suspended their international travel, many countries also declared lockdown. The government of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days on March 24,2020. The lockdown kept extending till May 31, 2020. Though the lockdown has been lifted and many businesses has started we should remember that Pandemic is not over and with no cure in sight we must understand the gravity of the situation and take proper precautions to keep ourselves and everyone around us safe.
