1. What are epidemics?
Answers
An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. For example, in meningococcal infections, an attack rate in excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered an epidemic.
Answer:
An infectious disease reaches epidemic proportions when it spreads to a large number of people in a relatively short amount of time. Humans have experienced epidemics for as long as they have lived together in communities. But once people started to travel around the world in significant numbers, they carried infectious diseases with them and epidemics became pandemics—disease outbreaks on global proportions.
Explanation:
The occurrence of more cases of a disease than would be expected in a community or region during a given time period. A sudden severe outbreak of a disease such as SARS. From the Greek "epi-", "upon" + "demos", "people or population" = "epidemos" = "upon the population." See also: Endemic; Pandemic.