Epidemic: What it is, how to Fight it and what is the Difference with Endemic and Pandemic

The epidemic can be defined as the emergence of a disease in a region with a higher number of cases than is normally expected. Epidemics can be characterized as sudden onset diseases that spread rapidly, affecting the greatest number of people.

To control the epidemic of infectious disease, it is important that cases be notified to the health body so that measures can be taken and thus prevent the spread of the disease to other areas. Some of the strategies that can be used to contain an epidemic are to avoid traveling and frequenting closed environments with a greater concentration of people, such as shopping centers, cinemas, and restaurants.

Epidemics are complicated when the disease is out of control, spreading to other areas or countries due to the movement of people and air travel or lack of proper hygiene, becoming known as a pandemic, which is considered more serious due to the ease and speed of transmission.

How to fight an epidemic

The best way to fight an epidemic is to try to contain the virus and prevent it from spreading it to other people. In this way, the recommendations of health institutions should be followed, which may vary according to the disease and its form of transmission.

However, the main actions to be performed are:

1. Inform the hospital or health service of any case suspected of infection due to illness;
2. Inform the hospital when you were in contact with someone who developed a disease and avoids contact with healthy individuals until you confirm that you do not have the disease;
3. Wash your hands before and after meals, after using the bathroom, sneezing, coughing or touching your nose and whenever your hands are dirty;
4. Wear gloves and masks whenever it is necessary to come into contact with another person's body secretions and/or injuries;
5. Avoid touching common surfaces of public spaces, such as handrails, elevator buttons or door handles. 

Also, in order not to acquire the disease during an epidemic, it is important to avoid unnecessary trips to the hospital, health service, emergency, or pharmacies, as well as to apply the vaccine against the disease, if it exists. However, some diseases such as Ebola or cholera do not have vaccines capable of preventing the development of diseases, and, in these cases, preventing infection is the best way to avoid an epidemic. Learn how to avoid infectious diseases.

Quarantine During the Epidemic

During an epidemic, quarantine is important to prevent the disease from spreading and affecting more people, giving rise to a pandemic. The quarantine corresponds to a public health measure, in which healthy people who were exposed to the infectious agent related to the epidemic are separated and monitored in order to determine if they developed the disease.

This is because many of the people who inhabit the area considered to be the center of the epidemic, can carry the infectious agent and not develop the disease, however, they easily manage to transmit the infectious agent to other people, causing the spread of the same.

Difference Between Endemic, Epidemic, and Pandemic

Endemic, epidemic and pandemic are terms that describe the epidemiological situation of a certain disease in a region or in the world. The term endemic refers to the frequency of certain diseases and usually describes a disease that is restricted to a region and that is influenced by climatic, social, hygienic and biological factors. Endemic diseases are usually seasonal, that is, their frequency varies depending on the time of year.

On the other hand, epidemic diseases are those that affect a greater proportion and spread rapidly, regardless of the time of year. When an epidemic disease reaches other continents, it is called a pandemic, in which the infectious disease spreads uncontrollably to several areas, making its control complicated.