Roots
Difference of degree
Deepti

Sometimes the origin of words can clarify matters and the swine flu situation proves this point, as this write up will demonstrate.

The word ‘epidemic’ takes its origin from the Greek ‘epidemia’ and ‘epidemios’. Both these Greek words are made up of ‘epi’ or ‘upon’ and ‘demos’ or ‘the people’. While ‘epidemia’ was used in the sense of ‘prevalence of disease’, ‘epidemios’ was used in the sense of ‘prevalent’.

The word ‘epidemic’ is used for ‘a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time’. It is used metaphorically for any widespread and undesirable phenomenon such as ‘the epidemic of computer hacking’. To grasp the subtle meaning shift from ‘epidemic’ to ‘pandemic’, a quick view of related words is justified.

When a disease or condition is regularly found in a particular area or among certain people, it is termed ‘endemic’, originating from the Greek ‘endemios’ or ‘native’. The incidence of obesity is endemic to urban Punjab dwellers, for instance. If a disease is temporarily prevalent or widespread in an animal population, it is termed ‘epizootic’. This word comes from the Greek words ‘epi’ and ‘zoion’ or ‘animal. If restricted to a particular area, such an affliction is termed ‘enzootic’, along the lines of ‘endemic’. The catch word of today, ‘pandemic’, comes from the Greek word ‘pandemos’ that is made up of ‘pan’ or ‘all’ and ‘demos’ or ‘people’. Hence, a pandemic refers to an outbreak of a disease in a whole country or the whole world. The WHO says swine flu has ‘pandemic potential’, warning all countries to get their pandemic preparedness plans in order. To be a pandemic proper, it must fulfill three criteria: one, the microbe or virus can infect and cause serious illness in humans, two, humans do not have an immunity against the virus and three, the virus spreads easily from person to person and survives in humans. At present, the absence of easy swine flu spread from human to human stops it from getting the full pandemic treatment. So, it’s not a proper pandemic yet.