What Is A Pandemic? Definition And When It’s Declared
PANDEMIC – In this topic, we are going to know the meaning of the term pandemic and when is this declared.
Recently the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a pandemic.
So what is the meaning of the term?
Definition
By definition, as an adjective, it means that the disease is prevalent over a whole country or the world.
As a noun, on the other hand, it means an outbreak of such a disease.
USA Today described the term as a global outbreak of a serious new illness which requires “sustained transmission throughout the world,”
The term focuses on the geographic spread of the virus over several nations around the world rather than the changes ton the characteristics of a disease.
It is usually associated to the term epidemic, which refers to the disease going out of control or a sudden increase in the number of cases.
Both terms would suggest that there is a specific threshold by which an event is declared an outbreak or either of the two. However, the distinction is often blurred, even among epidemiologists.
When is this declared?
According to the Guardian, it’s up to the WHO to finally declare the status since there is no threshold like a certain number of deaths or infections, or number of countries affected to declare such event.
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