Veterinary Public Health Journal | Issue #17
Global health & Infectious Disease Outbreak Introduction
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Global health is the health of the population in the global context. Koplan et al. define global health as: ‘an area for study, research, and practice that places a priority on improving health and achieving health equity for all people worldwide’. And there are many other definitions of global health and all together it is the health of all the populations not only human being but also health of the animals and environment too. All three health viz. human health, animal health and community or environmental health must be studied together so as to create a healthy relation between those essential components of the ecosystem. Infectious diseases are disorders caused by organisms such as bacteria, viruses, fungi or parasites. Many organisms live in and on our bodies. They’re normally harmless or even helpful. But under certain conditions, some organisms may cause disease. Some infectious diseases can be passed from person to person. Some are transmitted by insects or other animals to humans . And human get others by consuming contaminated food or water or being exposed to organisms in the environment. Those diseases which transmit one individual to other individuals are more dangerous and they affect global health; HIV, MERS, SARS, Hepatitis etc are examples of those infectious disease.
What is an outbreak, epidemic and pandemic?
Outbreak is a sudden increase in occurrence of a disease in a particular time and place. It may affect a small or a large group of population. In another language an outbreak is a spike in the no. of cases of a disease. For example outbreak of COVID-19 was in Wuhan, China. When disease transmitted continuously from one individual to others it become epidemic after its outbreak in 2 or more cities or neighbouring nations. Epidemic is ongoing transmission of a disease, VetPubHealth Journal ISSUE 17
i d u a h h c l a Anish B with no clear endpoint. This is why we might hear ‘obesity epidemic’ or ‘opioid epidemics’. As an example let’s take the same example of COVID-19, it was epidemic in china when it was spread in other some cities of China. When the disease spread exponentially and crosses the intercontinental barrier then it becomes pandemic or global pandemic and as example COVID-19 is the global pandemic as it has been spread all over the world. Some infectious disease that became epidemic and pandemic (source:WHO 2020) : • Chikungunya • Cholera • Crimean-Congo haemorrhagic fever • Ebola virus disease • Hendra virus infection • Influenza • Lassa fever • Marburg virus disease • Meningitis • MERS-CoV • Monkeypox • Nipah virus infection • Novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) • Plague • Rift Valley fever • SARS • Smallpox • Tularaemia • Yellow fever • Zika virus disease
IVSA Standing Committe on One Health
April 2020
