Friday, July 15, 2005
What is The Difference Between a Pandemic and an Epidemic?
I am not sure, to be honest. I personally have a lot of trouble with these two words. I sometimes wish one of them would be thrown away or otherwise not used. But that is not going to happen. So, I'll try to explain what I think I know about these words.
From what I can tell an epidemic is an outbreak of disease (or sometimes other event) that affects many people over a large geographic area. A pandemic seems to be an outbreak of disease that affects many people over an even wider geographic area. The Greek root pan connotes the notion of all or universality. I have seen the word pandemic qualified as a global epidemic. But a pandemic does not have to be global to be used in the context of bigger than an epidemic. In other places, I see them used quite interchangeably.
Dictionaries I've consulted are quite noncommital on the differences.
From what I can tell an epidemic is an outbreak of disease (or sometimes other event) that affects many people over a large geographic area. A pandemic seems to be an outbreak of disease that affects many people over an even wider geographic area. The Greek root pan connotes the notion of all or universality. I have seen the word pandemic qualified as a global epidemic. But a pandemic does not have to be global to be used in the context of bigger than an epidemic. In other places, I see them used quite interchangeably.
Dictionaries I've consulted are quite noncommital on the differences.
# posted by Ninja @ 5:29 PM 
