Dear @Aime Dieudonne Nshutinzima:

First, it would be better if you had framed your questions to specific a disease. Anyway, the following are the crude definitions as they go in Epidemiology:

I hope you'll find my answers somehow satisfying.

Hello Aime Dieudonne Nshutinzima

An epidemic is a disease outbreak that is rapidly spreading in a limited region. Examples are cholera, malaria.

A pandemic is an epidemic that is actively spreading to multiple regions across the globe. Examples are small-pox pandemic, covid-19 pandemic.

Outbreak carries the same definition as an epidemic but is often used to describe an event that is more limited to a geographic area. It will include infectious diseases and diseases with an environmental origin, such as a water or foodborne disease.

Example: A cluster of children absent from school due to gastrointestinal illness could represent an outbreak if they are found to have the same infectious disease.

Best.

An outbreak is sudden occurrence of disease or health related phenomenon in a limited population say for example in a street or barracks or school.Epidemic crosses the boundaries of a community and may involve a major portion of a city within a country.A pandemic is an epidemic when it crosses international boundaries.

Outbreak is when you see an increase in number of cases more than the usual baseline epidemiological level of a particular disease in a geographical area within a certain time period. Epidemic is when the outbreak spreads yet limited to a certain geographical region in a particular time period, and pandemic means when it spreads beyond international boundaries.

@Wielick Constance, would you be willing to assist him with the figure you proposed for your students?

Tidjani Ayole Djiman

Of course. Here’s a graph we show to our students to illustrate the different epidemiological forms. If you add the geographic dimension, you can differentiate between an epidemic and a pandemic (as other members have already explained). An outbreak is a sudden and significant increase in the incidence rate. It can develop into an epidemic, which eventually decreases and resolves, or become endemic, depending on whether the incidence remains stable or not.

Outbreak is distribution of an disease in limited geographic area.

if this disease situation spread to larger area is called epidemic situation which included a city or province or larger.

The most distribution of disease in the world which involve many countries is called pandemic situation.