Sporadic

Occurring upon occasion or in a scattered, isolated or seemingly random way. A disorder that is sporadic is by definition neither an endemic, an epidemic, nor a pandemic: {{}}An endemic is present in a community at all times but in low frequency. An endemic is continuous, as in the case of malaria in some areas of the world or as with illicit drugs in certain neighborhoods. An epidemic involves more than the expected number of cases of disease occurring in a community or region during a given period of time. An epidemic is typically a sudden severe outbreak within a region or a group as, for example, AIDS in intravenous drug users. A pandemic is an epidemic that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world. For example, AIDS is now pandemic in Africa. "Sporadic" is from the Greek ""sporadikos" meaning "scattered."

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1. Denoting a temporal pattern of disease occurrence in an animal or human population in which the disease occurs only rarely and without regularity. See endemic, epidemic, enzootic, epizootic. 2. In the genetic context denotes a singleton or sport. Several quite different and disparate phenomena are covered by this term, including a new mutation; occult nonpaternity; the chance outcome for a recessive trait in two carrier parents with a small family; extreme variability in the expression of a gene; an environmental phenocopy; a multilocal genocopy, etc. No useful properties can be predicated of all members of this class; and the term is notionally useless. 3. Occurring irregularly, haphazardly. [G. sporadikos, scattered]

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spo·rad·ic spə-'rad-ik adj occurring occasionally, singly, or in scattered instances <\sporadic diseases> compare ENDEMIC, EPIDEMIC (1)

spo·rad·i·cal·ly -i-k(ə-)lē adv

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adj.

describing a disease that occurs only occasionally or in a few isolated places. Compare endemic, epidemic.

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spo·rad·ic (spə-radґik) [from Gr. sperein to sow seed] neither endemic nor epidemic; occurring occasionally in a random or isolated manner.