Pandemic vs. Epidemic - FYI

A lot of people are misusing the word pandemic when referring to the ongoing Ebola crisis. The crisis has not reached pandemic status, and is at this point an epidemic (a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time).

The internationally accepted definition of pandemic from the Dictionary of Epidemiology:

'an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries and usually affecting a large number of people.'

The word pandemic does not describe severity of the disease; not all pandemics are severe.

Here is The World Health Organization's (WHO) criteria for a pandemic:

Able to infect humans,
Able to cause disease in humans,
Able to spread from human to human quite easily.

If Ebola were to spread, and outbreaks (documented cases of transmission/infection) were to occur in other regions of the world, it would then be labeled a pandemic.