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A medical dictionary definition of pandemic is "an epidemic occurring on a scale that crosses international boundaries, usually affecting people on a worldwide scale". [14] A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious.
Pandemics timeline death tolls. This is a list of the largest known epidemics and pandemics caused by an infectious disease in humans. Widespread non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular disease and cancer are not included.
In epidemiology, an outbreak is a sudden increase in occurrences of a disease when cases are in excess of normal expectancy for the location or season. It may affect a small and localized group or impact upon thousands of people across an entire continent.
[11] [12] Pandemics and their ends are not well-defined, and whether or not one has ended differs according to the definition used. [11] [13] As of 9 January 2025, COVID-19 has caused 7,079,582 [5] confirmed deaths, and 18.2 to 33.5 million estimated deaths. [7] The COVID-19 pandemic ranks as the fifth-deadliest pandemic or epidemic in history.
The classic example is the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak, in which a cholera outbreak was mitigated by removing a supply of contaminated water - an event now regarded as the foundation of the science of epidemiology. [29] Urbanisation and overcrowding (e.g. in refugee camps) increase the likelihood of disease outbreaks.
The term pandemic had not been used then, but was used for later epidemics, including the 1918 H1N1 influenza A pandemic—more commonly known as the Spanish flu—which is the deadliest pandemic in history. The most recent pandemics include the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the 2009 swine flu pandemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost all these diseases ...
During the initial outbreak in Wuhan, China, various names were used for the virus; some names used by different sources included "the coronavirus" or "Wuhan coronavirus". [ 27 ] [ 28 ] In January 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) recommended "2019 novel coronavirus" (2019-nCoV) [ 5 ] [ 29 ] as the provisional name for the virus.
Researchers also may assess whether a disease outbreak is sporadic, or just an occasional occurrence; endemic, with a steady level of regular cases occurring in a region; epidemic, with a fast arising, and unusually high number of cases in a region; or pandemic, which is a global epidemic. If the cause of the infectious disease is unknown ...