An pandemic occurs when a illness it spreads over a large number of regions on the globe, that is, it is not restricted to just one location, it is present in a large geographic area.
Not all diseases can cause a pandemic, however some can spread quickly and infect thousands of people. The most recent case in our history is the COVID-19 pandemic, enacted in 2020.
Read too: 10 leading causes of death in the world
What is a pandemic?
Pandemic is a designation used to refer to a disease that has spread to several parts of the world simultaneously, having a sustained transmission her. This means that, in several countries and continents, this same disease is affecting the population, which is infecting itself through other people living in the same region.
It is important to clarify that the term pandemic does not refer to the severity of a disease, being the determining geographic factor for that classification.
Are pandemic and epidemic synonymous?
Epidemic and pandemic are two different terms that should not be used synonymously. when we talk about Epidemic, we refer to the increase in cases of a disease in a region that exceeds the expected number for that period of the year. Epidemics can affect municipalities, states and even an entire country. In the case of pandemic, the distribution of the disease in different countries is observed.
Pandemics today
the pandemics can currently occur more easily. This is because it is increasingly easy to displacement of people from one place to another and, consequently, there is a spread of a disease between them.
Often, the patient has no symptoms of a particular disease and relates to other people not worrying about the transmission. THE carelessness causes the transmission of the disease and the infection of a large number of people. In those cases where there are no symptoms, it is easy to move from one region to another without raising suspicions from the health authorities.
When a disease spreads over several regions, it becomes hard to predict the outcome of the story. A serious illness, for example, when it hits a poor region, can cause great devastation due to the lack of resources to contain the spread of the disease.
Furthermore, depending on the severity of the illness and the number of cases, a country's health system may not be prepared to guarantee treatment for all. In the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, there was a large number of deaths in Italy due to, among other factors, the health system collapse.
In this case, the number of beds in the ICU was quickly occupied, and the lack of personal protective equipment for doctors aggravated the situation even further. As of March 23, 2020, Italy has recorded more than six thousand deaths.
Read more: COVID-19, the most recent pandemic in our history
Examples of pandemics
THE most recent pandemic is COVID-19, which was declared by World Organization of Cheers (WHO) on March 11, 2020. This disease is caused by a new type of coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which triggers respiratory symptoms. The main symptoms of it are: fever, coughing and difficulty breathing. The disease can lead to death, being especially worrying when it affects the elderly and people with health problems, such as heart problems and diabetes. Until March 23, 2020, 332,930 cases of COVID-19 and 14,510 deaths were confirmed worldwide.
In addition to COVID-19, another recent pandemic was the H1N1 flu. This pandemic, which took place in 2009, led several people to death due to the relatively rapid advance of the virus gives the flu A(H1N1)pdm09. According to the WHO, in just eight weeks, the H1N1 flu virus has reached around 120 territories. In Brazil, the pandemic, which ended in 2010, took two thousand people to death. It is worth noting that, currently, there is a vaccine against the H1N1 flu, released free of charge for some groups, such as the elderly and people with chronic diseases.
Another case is the pandemic of AIDS, an sexually transmitted disease that has infected and infects millions of people across the planet. This disease, which can also be transmitted via transfusions with blood contaminated and sharing sharp objects with the patient, affects the immune system, making the individual more prone to infections. It is these infections that lead the patient to death, and not AIDS.
We must also not forget one of the most serious cases in history: the pandemic of Spanish flu, which took place between 1918 and 1920. It is estimated that this disease has infected around 600 million people and caused the death of 20 to 40 million people.
By Vanessa Sardinha dos Santos
Biology teacher
