An epidemic is a widespread outbreak of disease. It is distinguished by the large number of cases over a short period of time and the rapid spread from person to person. The term is usually applied to infectious diseases such as measles, cholera and influenza but it may also be used for noninfectious diseases such as cancer or obesity.
Epidemics are not only an immediate health risk but they have wider societal impacts as well. They can fuel nationalist or authoritarian movements if they reinforce prevailing racial, religious and ethnic identities. They can exacerbate economic inequalities if they lead to containment and control policies that negatively impact poorer communities. They can also exacerbate a lack of trust in government, international aid agencies and even medical professionals. This distrust has been demonstrated in the current pandemic with rumors of corruption, cover-ups and the sale of organs from dead patients (Hayden, 2019).
When a disease is described as an “epidemic” it implies that the situation is out of control. This can be because the virus is spreading faster than expected or because it is infecting more people than usual. An epidemic can also be caused by a combination of factors such as changes in human behavior, the interaction between viruses and other health conditions like heart disease or diabetes or environmental change that creates favourable conditions for the spread of the virus. The word epidemic comes from the Greek adjective epidemios which was formed from the words
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