Epidemics community protection

But it is more commonly employed by payds ("medicine men ) to induce trances and visions and communicate with the hekula spirits to prophesy or divine to protect the tribe against epidemics of sickness to make hunters and even their dogs more alert. 

In nondisaster times, public health serves communities and individuals within them by providing an array of essential services. Many of these services are invisible to the public. Typically, the public only becomes aware of the need for public health services when a problem develops (e.g., an epidemic occurs). The practice of public health becomes the list of essential services. Both distinct from and encompassing clinical services, public health s role is to assure the conditions necessary for people to live healthy lives through communitywide prevention and protection programs. 

Vaccination and immunization programmes seldom confer 100% protection against the target disease. More commonly the degree of protection is c. 60-95%. In such instances, while individuals receiving treatment will have a high probability of becoming immune, virtually all members of a community must be treated in order to reduce the actual proportion of susceptible individuals to below the threshold for epidemic spread of the dis-... 

Atkerson, T. Groundwater Protection Task Force/Groundwater Epidem. Division, FL HRS (1985), personal communication. 

EPA - Environmental Protection Agency. Epidemic - Occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness or outbreak clearly in excess of expectancy. 

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