OUTBREAKS of disease can spread rapidly and kill thousands but what is the difference between an endemic, epidemic and pandemic?
When more cases of a disease than expected are recorded in one area an outbreak is declared.
The area could be a small community or extend to several countries.
An outbreak could even be a single case of a contagious disease new to a community or not seen for a long time.
Outbreaks can last for a few days, weeks or even several years.
There are three types of outbreak an endemic, an epidemic or a pandemic.
A endemic is an outbreak that occurs at a predictable rate in a certain area or among a set population.
Chickenpox is classed as an endemic as it occurs at a high but predictable rate amongst youngsters.
Endemics remain at a steady state, but do not disappear from a population.
An epidemic will see a disease rapidly spread amongst a large number of people in a given population.
During an epidemic the disease will normally spread in two weeks or less.
There have been 14 epidemics since 2010, including the Ebola epidemic in West Africa, which killed 11,300 people between 2013 and 2016.
In 2003 the SARS outbreak was classed as an epidemic - it killed nearly 800 people.
A pandemic is the worldwide spread of a new infectious disease.
It stretches over a larger area, infects more people and causes more deaths than an epidemic.
In history there have been a number of devastating pandemics including smallpox, tuberculosis and the black death, which killed more than 75million people in 1350.
In 2009 a pandemic of swine flu killed 14,286 people worldwide.