The coronavirus continues to spread around the world, causing an increase in hospitalizations, particularly in France. If we were talking about an epidemic and then a pandemic, several international health authorities fear an endemic. But what are the differences between the three terms?
In two years, the coronavirus has gone through two statuses and a third is about to take over. After the epidemic and then pandemic period, Covid-19 enters the endemic period.
According to the Office quebecois de la langue française, “endemia is the usual persistence of an infectious and contagious disease in a given region. The disease is rife there permanently or latently and affects a large part of the population. We speak of endemic when the presence of the disease is known, reported, but this does not mean that the latter is progressing or that it is spreading”.
“An endemic disease can affect more people than an epidemic disease, and even than a pandemic,” notes the Medical Vocabulary.
The epidemic and the pandemic
The term “epidemic” is used when a contagious disease, usually of viral origin, affects a large number of people in a given region and for a certain period of time.
In France, the flu epidemic returns every year between October and March. Measures (vaccination, hygiene measures, etc.) are then taken.
We speak of a “pandemic” when an epidemic spreads to an entire continent, or even the entire world.
The most deadly pandemic was the Spanish flu, between 1918 and 1920. And currently, AIDS, Ebola or even avian flu can be considered as pandemic viral infections, since they affect the whole world.