Epidemics are outbreaks of disease of bacterial or viral origin that involve many people in a localized area at the same time. An example of an epidemic is the hemorrhagic fever outbreak caused by the Ebola virus in Zaire in 1976. When Ebola fever...

An epidemic is the occurrence of an illness among a large number of people in the same geographical area at the same time. Bacterial epidemics have probably been part of the lives of humans since the species evolved millions of years ago. Certainly by...

An epidemic is an outbreak of a disease that involves a large number of people in a contained area (e.g., village, city, country). An epidemic that is worldwide in scope is referred to as a pandemic. A number of viruses have been responsible for...

Epidemic, from the Greek meaning "prevalent among the people," is most commonly used to describes an outbreak of an illness or disease in which the number of individual cases significantly exceeds the usual or "expected" number of cases in any given...

In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) is a classification of a disease that appears as new cases in a given human population, during a given period, at a rate that substantially exceeds what is "expected," based on recent...

Dengue fever is spreading across Latin America and the Caribbean in one of the worst outbreaks in decades, causing agonizing joint pain for hundreds of thousands of people and killing nearly 200 so far this year.The mosquitoes that carry dengue are thriving in expanded urban...

Republican presidential candidate and self-described "recovering foodaholic" Mike Huckabee told Southern governors Saturday that an obesity epidemic could cause serious problems for the American economy, and even for national security."Today we hear a lot about the war on terror, how we need to fight it,"...

A new meningitis vaccine offers hope to end devastating epidemics that have plagued West Africa the last century, according to recent studies. The new vaccine protects against meningitis A, the deadliest form of the disease and seen primarily in Africa.It was developed by the Meningitis...

The HIV infection rate is dropping among young, pregnant women in South Africa but it is on the rise for the country's older women, according to a government study released Thursday.The 2006 survey showed the rate of infection for the virus that causes AIDS fell...

“Remarkable achievements have been accomplished in the control of many epidemic infectious diseases in this century.” —American Medical Association’s Council on Scientific Affairs “AIDS does not stand alone; it may well...