Influenza Epidemic »

Pandemic vs. Epidemic

Epidemics and pandemics refer to the spread of infectious diseases among a population. The difference between an epidemic and a pandemic is two-fold. A pandemic is normally used to indicate a far higher number of people affected than an epidemic, and a pandemic refers to a much larger region affected. In the most extreme case, the global population is affected by a pandemic.

An epidemic is defined by an illness or health-related issue that is showing up in more cases than would be normally expected. However, in the case of a pandemic, even more of the population is affected than in an epidemic. If the entire nation is affected but the rate of incidence never rose above that of an epidemic, it would still be considered an epidemic, even though the disease was nationwide.

Conversely, if a small population in a remote area is nearly 100% affected by an illness or health problem then it will be termed as a pandemic as the incidence is so high and the area relatively widespread.

Therefore normally epidemics that grows out of hand due to the nature of the disease and other factors, turn into pandemics. A pandemic may be regionally or localized if it involves more cases than a simple epidemic; and an epidemic may be widespread if not enough of the population is affected to term it pandemic.