A Pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new disease that impacts in almost all of an area or in almost all of a group of people, animals, or plants. An epidemic is an occurrence of a disease within a specific area or region in a large number of people at the same time. An influenza pandemic occurs when a new influenza virus emerges and spreads around the world, and most people do not have immunity.

Reference Definition by Wikipedia: A Pandemic is a disease epidemic that has spread across a large region; for instance multiple continents, or worldwide. A widespread endemic disease that is stable in terms of how many people are getting sick from it is not a pandemic. Further, flu pandemics generally exclude recurrences of seasonal flu. Throughout history, there have been a number of pandemics, such as smallpox and tuberculosis. One of the most devastating pandemics was the Black Death, which killed an estimated 75-200 million people in the 14th century. The current pandemics are HIV/AIDS and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Other recent pandemics include the 1918 influenza pandemic (Spanish flu) and the 2009 flu pandemic (H1N1).

Related Definitions in the Project: The HSE Management