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from Section 3 - Infection: General Principles
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2025
The aim of this chapter is to describe an approach for detecting, investigating and responding to an outbreak of an infectious disease. An outbreak is the occurrence of cases of an illness exceeding what is expected (above the baseline rate) in a defined area or population (Fig. 19.1). For example, the initial outbreak of COVID-19 was discovered because authorities in Wuhan, China observed cases of severe pneumonia admitted to hospital with an unusual pattern of clustering by family. An epidemic is defined as the widespread occurrence of an infectious disease within a defined population or country, whereas a pandemic implies that the disease outbreak has spread throughout the world.
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