Not all infectious disease-related terms have the same meaning, though often they’re mistakenly used interchangeably. The distinction between the words “pandemic,” “epidemic,” and “endemic” is regularly mistaken.
An epidemic is a disease that affects a large number of people within a community, population or region. A pandemic is an epidemic that spreads over multiple countries or continents. An outbreak is a greater-than-anticipated increase in the number of endemic cases. It can also be a single case in a new area. If it’s not quickly controlled, an outbreak can become an epidemic.
Endemic is a disease that is constantly present in a region for example malaria is endemic to parts of Africa.
What’s the difference between epidemic and endemic?
An epidemic is often localized to a region, but the number of those infected in that region is significantly higher than normal. For example, when COVID 19 was limited to Wuhan, China, it was an epidemic. The geographical spread turned it into a pandemic.
A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. It differs from an outbreak or epidemic because it:
- affects a wider geographical area, often worldwide.
- infects a greater number of people than an epidemic.
- is often caused by a new virus or a strain of virus that has not circulated among people for a long time. Humans usually have little to no immunity against it. The virus spreads quickly from person-to-person worldwide.
- it causes much higher numbers of deaths than epidemics.
it often creates social disruption, economic loss, and general hardship.