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Pandemics: Emergence And Devastation

Garcia 1
Pandemics All Around the World: Emergence and Devastation
Many people today wonder when, where, why, and how pandemics occur. Some people do not have any knowledge about pandemics. “According to the World Health Organization (WHO, several factors must be present to be considered a pandemic. First, the disease must have never appeared before within a population; second, the agent that carries the disease—like a fly, bacteria, air, or water—infects one person, causing serious illness; and last, the disease spreads easily among humans” (Segall). Pandemic starts with the smallest harmful parasites from animals, plants, and bacteria, also known as viruses. These viruses can inflict different kinds of disease or problems to the human body. Thus, allowing hazardous infections to occur in the human body. These infections may also be contagious, which elevates the danger around other people. If these contagious infections does not get apprehended or treated immediately, it can result to an epidemic. An epidemic is considered as a very serious outbreak of a dangerous contagious disease that can infect and rapidly spread to many communities. If this epidemic does not have a known cure yet, hence it would become a pandemic if it extends to large parts of the world. Some people are still confused between pandemics and epidemics. To simply put it, an epidemic is the rapid spread of a disease in a specific area or among a certain population group. On the other hand, pandemic is a worldwide epidemic; an epidemic occurring over a wide geographic region and affecting a large number of people (Segall). There are different kinds of pandemic that have occurred in history. “Examples of pandemics occurring through history include the bubonic plague, also called the
Garcia 2
“Black Death,” that killed 20 million Europeans during the 1300s, seven cholera pandemics through the 1800s and 1900s, and numerous influenza pandemics” (Purpura). Those pandemics are...