12-08-2015, 03:14 PM
Originally posted by ElysianWort
My friend and I were having this debate where I said Dengue isn't an EPIDEMIC yet and she said it is. I looked up the definition and it said: a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.
It depends on whether one considers the 140ish cases (out of ~190,000 people on Hawaii island) as being "widespread". Given the totals seen in other countries where the CDC actually declared an epidemic, this current outbreak doesn't really qualify (yet).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fev...reaks#2010
ETA - Puerto Rico 2012 Dengue Epidemic (population is ~3.5 million, or just over 2x the state of Hawaii)
http://www.healthmap.org/site/diseasedai...mic-101812
When suspected cases pass the 75th percentile based on historical data between 1986 and 2008, the CDC declares epidemic status.
...
Dengue is endemic to Puerto Rico, which sees 3,000 to 9,000 cases in non-epidemic years. The worst epidemics since 1990 saw 24,700 cases in 1994, 17,000 in 1998, and 10,508 in 2007. During the most recent epidemic in 2007, half of the cases were hospitalized, and one third were reportedly hemorrhagic.
My friend and I were having this debate where I said Dengue isn't an EPIDEMIC yet and she said it is. I looked up the definition and it said: a widespread occurrence of an infectious disease in a community at a particular time.
It depends on whether one considers the 140ish cases (out of ~190,000 people on Hawaii island) as being "widespread". Given the totals seen in other countries where the CDC actually declared an epidemic, this current outbreak doesn't really qualify (yet).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dengue_fev...reaks#2010
ETA - Puerto Rico 2012 Dengue Epidemic (population is ~3.5 million, or just over 2x the state of Hawaii)
http://www.healthmap.org/site/diseasedai...mic-101812
When suspected cases pass the 75th percentile based on historical data between 1986 and 2008, the CDC declares epidemic status.
...
Dengue is endemic to Puerto Rico, which sees 3,000 to 9,000 cases in non-epidemic years. The worst epidemics since 1990 saw 24,700 cases in 1994, 17,000 in 1998, and 10,508 in 2007. During the most recent epidemic in 2007, half of the cases were hospitalized, and one third were reportedly hemorrhagic.