As on February 29, 5,233 confirmed cases of COVID-19 outbreak (caused by novel coronavirus: SARS-CoV-2) ) have been reported from 60 countries. Yet World Health Organisation has not declared it a “Pandemic”.
What is a Pandemic?
- The Pandemic description is reserved for an infectious disease threatening lots of people all over the world simultaneously.
- A pandemic is defined as the worldwide spread of a new disease
- Pandemics are more likely if a virus is brand new, able to infect people easily and can spread from person to person in an efficient and sustained way.
- Pandemics have nothing to do with the severity of a disease but are to do with its geographic spread.
- There is no threshold, such as a certain number of deaths or infections, or number of countries affected, that needs to be met. For example, the Sars coronavirus, identified in 2003, was not declared a pandemic by the WHO despite affecting 26 countries. However its spread was contained quickly, and only a handful of nations were significantly affected, including China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Canada.
- According to the World Health Organization, a pandemic is declared when a new disease for which people do not have immunity spreads around the world beyond expectations. The 2009 H1N1 outbreak, HIV (1981), Spanish flu (1918), bubonic plague (1347) and smallpox (1870) are all examples of pandemics.
