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*Defined by the World Health Organization to include 6 stages of development.  At stage 6, a pandemic is is reached.  
==Definition==
A pandemic is the rapid spread of disease to a large population spread across a large region outside of normal local boundaries within a short period of time (1-2 weeks)

==Development==
===Phase I===
Phase I is the period before any new infectious subtypes have been detected in animals, a stage that is often missed since new subtypes are occur yearly
===Phase II===
Phase II  begins after the new virus has been shown to infect humans 
===Phase III===
Phase 3 begins when cases of the new virus appear in humans throughout the world for example during H5NI virus, or avian flu, a disease that spread from birds to humans but not from humans to humans. <ref>WHO H5N1http://www.who.int/influenza/human_animal_interface/en/</ref>

===Phase IV===
Phase IV occurs when the virus can easily transmit between humans and results in this results in community-level epidemics 

===Phase V===
Phase V involves disease spread across continents and WHO regions<ref name="WHO Regions">WHO Disease Regions http://www.who.int/healthinfo/global_burden_disease/definition_regions/en/</ref> and often is inevitibel until true pandemic is reached.

===Phase VI===
Phase VI is the definition of a pandemic and requires documentation of the disease in multiple continents or two WHO regions<ref name="WHO Regions"></ref>

==See Also==
*[[Influenza]]

==References==
<references/>

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