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[6] With the use of air travel, people are able to go to foreign lands, contract a disease and not have any symptoms of illness until after they get home, and having exposed others to the disease along the way. Another example of the potency of modern modes of transportation in increasing the spread of disease is the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic ...
The Plague of Athens (c. 1652 –1654) by Michiel Sweerts, illustrating the devastating epidemic that struck Athens in 430 BC, as described by the historian Thucydides. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines epidemic broadly: "Epidemic refers to an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in ...
Incidence is usually more useful than prevalence in understanding the disease etiology: for example, if the incidence rate of a disease in a population increases, then there is a risk factor that promotes the incidence. For example, consider a disease that takes a long time to cure and was widespread in 2002 but dissipated in 2003.
Epidemiology has its limits at the point where an inference is made that the relationship between an agent and a disease is causal (general causation) and where the magnitude of excess risk attributed to the agent has been determined; that is, epidemiology addresses whether an agent can cause disease, not whether an agent did cause a specific ...
A 2022 statement from the World Health Organization (WHO), defines the term this way: “Disease X is [used] to indicate an unknown pathogen that could cause a serious international epidemic.”
A disease or condition is not a pandemic merely because it is widespread or kills many people; it must also be infectious. For instance, cancer is responsible for many deaths but is not considered a pandemic because the disease is not contagious —i.e. easily transmissible—and not even simply infectious . [ 16 ]
Co-existing diseases can but don't necessarily contribute to death [56] to various degrees in various ways. In some cases, comorbidities can be major causes with complex underlying mechanisms, and a range of comorbidities can be present once. [57] Pandemics [58] [59] and infectious diseases or epidemics can be major underlying causes of deaths.
Cancer rates in men are projected to jump by 84 percent from 2022 to 2050, while cancer deaths are expected to increase by 93.2 percent over the same time frame, according to the peer-reviewed study.