In part 1 of Disease Madness – What Is Happening?, I discussed the ‘diseases’ reported by the WHO on their Disease Outbreak News (DONS) web page since 1st June 2022. But these were not all new ‘outbreaks’; some were referred to as ‘situation updates’; in other words, they had begunContinue Reading

I had originally planned to include a small section about monkeypox as part of my ‘Disease Madness’ series. But that plan changed with the declaration by the WHO Director General on 23rd July 2022 that ‘monkeypox’ is now a ‘global health emergency’. I realised then that it requires a wholeContinue Reading

The Merriam-Webster web page that contains the definition of ‘pandemic’ includes a section called Frequently Asked Questions that also provides answers. One such question and answer is, “When does an outbreak become a pandemic?An outbreak is “a sudden rise in the incidence of a disease” and typically is confined toContinue Reading