Epidemic and the spread of an infectious disease, which appears quickly in a particular location or in large regions and it attacks a large number of people at the same time.
Viruses, bacteria or other microorganisms are responsible for causing epidemics. They spread through the air, saliva, water, blood or through animals called hosts.
Several epidemics have occurred over the centuries, including the bubonic plague or Black Death, which devastated Europe and Asia, between the years 1333 to 1351, and caused millions of deaths. Smallpox killed millions of people between the years 1896 to 1980.
In a figurative sense, an epidemic is anything that, becoming a fashion, starts to be used by a large number of people. It is also an expression used to generalize a large number of certain occurrences. E.g.: tobacco epidemic, homicide epidemic, etc.
Endemic, epidemic and pandemic
Endemic is the frequent occurrence of a disease, usually infectious, in a certain place, affecting a greater or lesser number of individuals.
In Brazil, several diseases are considered endemic, including yellow fever, malaria, leishmaniasis, schistosomiasis, dengue, chagas disease, leprosy and tuberculosis. The Amazon Region (Acre, Amapá, Amazonas, Maranhão, Mato Grosso, Pará, Rondônia, Roraima and Tocantins) is an endemic area for malaria.
An epidemic is an outbreak of aggravation of an endemic disease, that is, a disease that exists with frequency, in a certain place and that quickly attacks a large number of people, becoming a Epidemic.
As a given disease spreads across a large part of a continent or even across different parts of the world, it becomes a pandemic.
See also the meanings of pandemic and quarantine.
viral marketing
In the area of advertising, viral marketing or viral advertising are techniques that exploit the various social networks to produce a greater dissemination of brands, as an epidemic-like process, which is associated with the speed of propagation of the information.
