Outbreak in the context of "Cross-species transmission"

A severe outbreak of cholera occurred in 1854 near Broad Street (now Broadwick Street) and Golden Square in Soho, London, England, during the worldwide 1846–1860 cholera pandemic. The outbreak (also known as Golden Square outbreak), which killed 616 people, is best known for the physician John Snow's study of its causes and his hypothesis that germ-contaminated water was the cause, rather than something in the air called "miasma". This discovery influenced public health and the construction of improved sanitation facilities beginning in the mid-19th century. Later, the term "focus of infection" was used to describe sites, such as the Broad Street pump, where conditions are favourable for transmission of infection. Snow unknowingly took advantage of a natural experiment during his endeavours to identify the cause of cholera transmission.

Disease surveillance is an epidemiological practice by which the spread of disease is monitored in order to establish patterns of progression. The main role of disease surveillance is to predict, observe, and minimize the harm caused by outbreak, epidemic, and pandemic situations, as well as increase knowledge about which factors contribute to such circumstances. A key part of modern disease surveillance is the practice of disease case reporting.

The number of cases could be gathered from hospitals – which would be expected to see most of the occurrences – collated, and eventually made public. With the advent of modern communication technology, this has changed dramatically. Organizations like the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) now can report cases and deaths from significant diseases within days – sometimes within hours – of the occurrence. Further, there is considerable public pressure to make this information available quickly and accurately.

In ecology, a disturbance is a change in environmental conditions that causes a pronounced change in an ecosystem. Disturbances often act quickly and with great effect, to alter the physical structure or arrangement of biotic and abiotic elements. A disturbance can also occur over a long period of time and can impact the biodiversity within an ecosystem. Ecological disturbances include fires, flooding, storms, insect outbreaks, trampling, human presence, earthquakes, plant diseases, infestations, volcanic eruptions, impact events, etc.

Not only invasive species can have a profound effect on an ecosystem, native species can also cause disturbance by their behavior. Disturbance forces can have profound immediate effects on ecosystems and can, accordingly, greatly alter the natural community’s population size or species richness. Because of these and the impacts on populations, disturbance determines the future shifts in dominance, various species successively becoming dominant as their life history characteristics, and associated life-forms, are exhibited over time.

DayZ is a multiplayer online survival video game developed and published by Bohemia Interactive. It is the standalone game based on the mod of the same name for Arma 2. Following a five-year-long early access period for Windows, the game was officially released in December 2018, and was released for the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 in 2019.

The game places the player in multiple fictional countries, where a mysterious plague has turned most of the population into violent "infected". As a survivor, the player must scavenge the world for food, water, weapons, and medicine, while killing or avoiding the infected, and killing, avoiding, or cooperating with other players in an effort to survive the outbreak.

Vaccine hesitancy is a delay in acceptance, or refusal of vaccines despite availability and supporting evidence. The term covers refusals to vaccinate, delaying vaccines, accepting vaccines but remaining uncertain about their use, or using certain vaccines but not others. Although adverse effects associated with vaccines are occasionally observed, the scientific consensus that vaccines are generally safe and effective is overwhelming. Vaccine hesitancy often results in disease outbreaks and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. Therefore, the World Health Organization characterizes vaccine hesitancy as one of the top ten global health threats.

Vaccine hesitancy is complex and context-specific, varying across time, place and vaccines. It can be influenced by factors such as lack of proper scientifically based knowledge and understanding about how vaccines are made or work, as well as psychological factors including fear of needles and distrust of public authorities, a person's lack of confidence (mistrust of the vaccine and/or healthcare provider), complacency (the person does not see a need for the vaccine or does not see the value of the vaccine), and convenience (access to vaccines). It has existed since the invention of vaccination and pre-dates the coining of the terms "vaccine" and "vaccination" by nearly eighty years.

The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) is a foundation that takes donations from public, private, philanthropic, and civil society organisations, to finance independent research projects to develop vaccines against emerging infectious diseases (EID).

CEPI is focused on the World Health Organization's (WHO) "blueprint priority diseases", which include: the Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV), the Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), the Nipah virus, the Lassa fever virus, and the Rift Valley fever virus, as well as the Chikungunya virus and the hypothetical, unknown pathogen "Disease X". CEPI investment also requires "equitable access" to the vaccines during outbreaks, although subsequent CEPI policy changes may have compromised this criterion. In 2022, CEPI adopted a vision for the world to be able to respond to a pandemic threat with a new vaccine within 100 days.