Floods hit millions in West and Central Africa

Parts of Central and West Africa have seen heavy flooding over an unusually intense rainy season, unleashing a humanitarian crisis in which hundreds have been killed and hundreds of thousands displaced.

The plague came from Egypt: Myth or reality?

Many reports from antiquity about outbreaks of plague mention Egypt as the source of pestilences that reached the Mediterranean. But was this really the case? Researchers from the University of Basel are conducting a critical ...

Skeletal remains debunk myth surrounding 1918 flu pandemic

Look back at the chronicle of global pandemics, and the flu pandemic of 1918 stands out as an anomaly for one reason: According to the history books, it struck healthy adults in their prime just as often, if not more so, ...

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Epidemic

In epidemiology, an epidemic (from Greek epi- upon + demos people) occurs when new cases of a certain disease, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what is "expected," based on recent experience (the number of new cases in the population during a specified period of time is called the "incidence rate"). (An epizootic is the analogous circumstance within an animal population.) In recent usages, the disease is not required to be communicable; examples include cancer or heart disease.

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