Pchuang  +  198626 Sun, 19 Feb 06 02:44 PM what are the differences between the two? are they interchangable? Pchuang

	Best answer by Clive  +  198662 Sun, 19 Feb 06 05:05 PM Hi, epidemic a widespread occurence of a disease, or occasionally of some other undesirable thing eg an epidemic of bad grammar pandemic The prefix 'pan' refers to 'all' (from Greek). A pandemic is a big epidemic, typically involving the entire world or perhaps a whole country. Unlike 'epidemic', 'pandemic' is only used to refer to diseases.  Best wishes, Clive Clive Languages

	Pchuang  +  198789 Mon, 20 Feb 06 12:10 AM the prefix 'epi' has some meaning of 'top', 'big' as in 'epicenter', where an earth quake starts and where the force of the quake is at its peak. what is the meaning of other part: 'demic'? population? people? or disease? Pchuang

	Clive  +  198803 Mon, 20 Feb 06 01:00 AM Hi, 'demic'? population? people? or disease? It's from the Greek demos = people. As in democracy, demographic, etc. Clive Clive

	Anonymous  suggested by Anonymous  +  704246 Mon, 27 Apr 09 06:23 PM Here is an answer from another list: http://www.diffen.com/difference/Epidemic_vs_Pandemic Anonymous