Epidemics often make headline news: recent examples include foot & mouth disease and SARS. This means that as well as being of interest to scientists and academics, they also attract the public's attention.
But our understanding of epidemics is often limited to media interpretations which may only be a partial view of the issues.
This website is developed as part of a project funded by the Wellcome Trust which aims to improve the public understanding of epidemics, particularly their common features, their spread (not every person during an epidemic will be affected), their impact (not everyone infected will die), and their lasting influence (which will vary from disease to disease).
The main content of the site is split into 8 sections: a section introducing the basic principles of epidemics, "BASICS", and 7 sections on different diseases or aspects of epidemics.
Each section is then split into smaller subsections, and these are designed to be worked through in order.
Start here:
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To help you use this site, a printer friendly 'users' pack' is provided:
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