March 23rd,2020

What is the news from last one week?

• Coronavirus confirmed as a pandemic by the World Health Organization.

What is Pandemic?

• Pandemics are states of disease that sharply increase in populations around the world with infections taking place more or less simultaneously.
• While it usually refers to infectious diseases, such as plague or influenza, it is often used to refer to other health conditions including cancer, obesity, and even addiction.

What is an Outbreak?

• An outbreak describes a sudden spike in transmissions in a localised region. For example, in 2019 the Democratic Republic of the Congo saw a steep rise in people contracting the Ebola virus in the nation’s east. While the World Health Organisation (WHO) viewed it as a public health emergency, its containment meant it wasn’t an epidemic.

What is an epidemic?

• An epidemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large number of people in a given population within a short period of time. For example, in meningococcal infections, an attack rate in excess of 15 cases per 100,000 people for two consecutive weeks is considered an epidemic.

What are the different stages of the spread of the virus?

Stage 1 – imported cases

• These cases are the people who have travelled to foreign countries; places that have confirmed cases of the virus and have come back to India.

Stage 2 – local transmission

• Like mentioned above, these cases are those people who have come in contact with those have a travel history.

Stage 3 – community transmission

• This is the stage we need to avoid as there is no way that the virus can be traced back to a certain person.

Stage 4 – an epidemic

• This is the last stage and what the world saw China grapple with.

(Source:- Firstpost)