What's the difference between epidemic and pestilence?

Epidemic


Definition:

  • (a.) Alt. of Epidemical
  • (n.) An epidemic disease.
  • (n.) Anything which takes possession of the minds of people as an epidemic does of their bodies; as, an epidemic of terror.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) Sierra Leone is one of the three West Africa nations hit hard by an Ebola epidemic this year.
  • (2) The epidemiology of HIV infection among women and hence among children has progressively changed since the onset of the epidemic in Western countries.
  • (3) The west Africa Ebola epidemic “Few global events match epidemics and pandemics in potential to disrupt human security and inflict loss of life and economic and social damage,” he said.
  • (4) And, as elsewhere in this epidemic, those on the frontline paid the highest price: four of the seven fatalities were health workers, including Adadevoh.
  • (5) Control measures were introduced rapidly, effectively stopping the epidemic.
  • (6) To identify the responsible virus and the consequences of the epidemic, during 1985 we interviewed and serologically screened 597 veterans who had been in the army in 1942.
  • (7) In late 1983 the Hagahai sought medical aid at a mission station, an event which accelerated their contact with the common epidemic diseases of the highlands.
  • (8) Two epidemics of meningoencephalitis caused by echovirus type 7 and coxsackievirus type B 5 in the summer and autumn of 1973 in Umeå in Northern Sweden were compared.
  • (9) What impact will the HIV epidemic have in the 1990s?
  • (10) This virus is related to HIV-1, the causative agent of the AIDS epidemic now spreading in Central and East Africa, as well as the USA and Europe (see ref.
  • (11) Our data showed that V. cholerae 01 was the most frequently (40%) isolated enteropathogen during the epidemics.
  • (12) To define more completely the period of fecal excretion of virus during hepatitis A virus infection, we studied 24 fecal samples from six children with clinical illness during an epidemic of type A hepatitis.
  • (13) One of the reasons for doing this study is to give a voice to women trapped in this epidemic,” said Dr Catherine Aiken, academic clinical lecturer in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology of the University of Cambridge, “and to bring to light that with all the virology, the vaccination and containment strategy and all the great things that people are doing, there is no voice for those women on the ground.” In a supplement to the study, the researchers have published some of the emails to Women on Web which reveal their fears.
  • (14) Patients with reactive arthritis, sacroiliitis, spondylitis or Reiter's syndrome following intestinal infection from Yersinia, Salmonella, Shigella or Campylobacter organisms have been reported from endemic areas and after epidemic dysenteries.
  • (15) This virus was imported on multiple occasions from a Philippine supplier of cynomolgus macaques as a consequence of an epidemic of acute infections in the foreign holding facility.
  • (16) And we owe [Hickox] better than that and all the people who do this work better than that.” The White House indicated that it was urgently reviewing the federal guidelines for returning healthcare workers, “recognising that these medical professionals’ selfless efforts to fight this disease on the front lines will be critical to bringing this epidemic under control, the only way to eliminate the risk of additional cases here at home”.
  • (17) The Authors report the results of IgM and IgA assays in blood of the umbilical cord of 1694 newborns during the period from October 1973 to July 1974 after a rubella epidemic occurred in Piedmont.
  • (18) The authors studied the pattern of occurrence of toxic oil syndrome, a previously undescribed disease that occurred in Spain in epidemic form in 1981, in two convents in Madrid.
  • (19) Analysis of the epidemic curve and intervals of onset of multiple cases within households suggested prolonged common source exposure rather than secondary person-to-person transmission.
  • (20) Galli said there were already about 200,000 hospitalisations of women who have undergone a clandestine termination every year, and a suspected 1 million illegal abortions before the epidemic.

Pestilence


Definition:

  • (n.) Specifically, the disease known as the plague; hence, any contagious or infectious epidemic disease that is virulent and devastating.
  • (n.) Fig.: That which is pestilent, noxious, or pernicious to the moral character of great numbers.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) The policies of zero tolerance equip local and federal law-enforcement with increasingly autocratic powers of coercion and surveillance (the right to invade anybody's privacy, bend the rules of evidence, search barns, stop motorists, inspect bank records, tap phones) and spread the stain of moral pestilence to ever larger numbers of people assumed to be infected with reefer madness – anarchists and cheap Chinese labour at the turn of the 20th century, known homosexuals and suspected communists in the 1920s, hippies and anti-Vietnam war protesters in the 1960s, nowadays young black men sentenced to long-term imprisonment for possession of a few grams of short-term disembodiment.
  • (2) As in the metaphorical community in Camus' narrative, the struggle of individuals against the pestilence (including official obstruction) is imperative.
  • (3) Overpopulation brings decreases in economic and social progress; pestilence, famine, and fear; riots in the cities; sacrifices in personal comfort and safety; and a blow to world order.
  • (4) Again and again, Camus invokes some condition of well-being that has been forfeited, because the pestilence has taken hold.
  • (5) Both sets of MHC antigens serve to diversify immunity-repertoire gaps among individuals of a population, thus hampering epidemic spread of infection and providing a diversity of immunoreactivity that favours survival of at least some members of a population in the face of pestilence.
  • (6) The arguments for future massive crises due to population pressure (war, famine, and pestilence) are unconvincing.
  • (7) Pestilence may be stalking the planet, and the global financial system is still teetering on the edge of collapse, but there finally came a reason today for us all to cheer up: Britain is heading for a warm and dry summer.
  • (8) Still though, it's a tiny part of the demon's dermatology and as such, connected to all the other pestilence.
  • (9) For much of the intervening time, this paper has charted the continent's battles with poverty, famine, pestilence, corruption, drought, Aids and war.
  • (10) I do not know for how long this went on; I know that they cared for him and I know too that it was as though a golden harvest had been mowed down by a night's dark wind, or a pestilence had come into the trees, and it was unlucky even to mention his name or ask for news of him.
  • (11) They are not a disease or rats bringing pestilence.
  • (12) Innovations in disease prevention and patient care have been essential in the conquest of pestilence.
  • (13) Lord Dobbs, the Tory peer who wrote the TV political thriller House of Cards and who is promoting the bill, said a poll was needed because the EU had become a "pestilence".
  • (14) He could not stop the firm plunging into the red, reeling from attacks by computer hackers, the tsunami of 2011 and next-generation PlayStation delays, once complaining the company had been hit by "everything but toads and pestilence".
  • (15) In a letter to the Henley Standard he wrote: "The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war.
  • (16) Current events once more arouse fears that the probable conclusion of our present growth era will unfortunately consist of widespread death from famine, pestilence, and social disruption of various kinds (perhaps involving nuclear devices).
  • (17) It has become a pestilence, it has become a poison in our political system.
  • (18) It is ironic that smallpox became an epidemic pestilence upon the growth of populations, yet it played a major role in preventing population growth until variolation and vaccination became common.
  • (19) As the four plants from which Valverde has been extracted (valerian, balm, passion-flower, and pestilence wort) have a reputation of being tranquilizing agents with spasmolytic effect, not only this effect needs to be demonstrated, but also sedative side effects and impairment of vigilance must be assessed to explore the risk for accident proneness.
  • (20) The shadow of Tony Blair brings with it memories of past wars and pestilences, of slick and spin.