Epidemic,Pandemic, Endemic and Sporadic

Sporadic

A sporadic disease rarely occurs, and occurs reasonably irregularly. Sporadic diseases rarely concern the public and should not be worried about in general. Some sporadic diseases once fitted into another category of disease but have since been controlled, and are therefore not a concern to the general public. An example of a current sporadic disease is rabies, as although it used to be a common disease the public needed to be wary of, it is now rarely seen in humans and people should not be worried about it.

Endemic

An endemic is a disease that is always heavily prevalent in a certain geographical area, but is rarely seen elsewhere. There is generally a consistent amount of new cases, rather than an increase, but the number of cases in the geographical area are much higher than anywhere else. An example of an endemic disease is Newcastle Disease, which is found in birds and poultry, but only in Australia.

Epidemic

An epidemic is a sudden increase in the number of cases of that disease in a certain area. A disease becomes an epidemic if in a certain geographical area the number of new cases rises quickly and suddenly. Epidemic diseases are usually either highly infectious and therefore spread quickly or no precautions had been taken to prevent the disease beforehand in that particular area. Often epidemics can seem to have no cause, and can seem to occur randomly. Epidemics can be caused by both new diseases and sudden increases in previously known endemic or sporadic diseases. An example of an epidemic was in 2019, during a measles outbreak in Samoa.

Pandemic

A pandemic is a sudden increase in the number of cases of a particular disease not only in one geographical area, but in many, often including more than one continent or the whole world. Pandemics spread quickly through vast areas, and are usually highly contagious. Pandemics are the status of disease most concerning to the public as they affect not only the people in a certain geographical area, but the public in many different areas. A very famous example of a pandemic is the Black Death, when the bubonic plague took over most of Europe and parts of Asia and Africa.

Pandemic Vs Epidemic Vs Endemic

The three words sound very similar, and are easily confused. However there are some clear differences between them. The main difference between a pandemic and the other two is that a pandemic is very widely spread, affecting a vast area of the world. This could be many, many countries, or maybe even several continents depending on the rate of spread. Epidemics and endemic diseases, however, are only found in a small geographical area, such as a few countries, states or provinces. They can even be found in a very small area such as an island or city. The difference between epidemics and endemic diseases is the increase in the number of cases. Epidemics occur very suddenly, and have big increases in the amount of people infected with the disease, whereas endemic diseases have a consistent amount of cases and do not occur suddenly or randomly.