epidemic

These children are at the forefront of a growing chronic-disease epidemic.

In the early 2000s, for example, with a baffling epidemic swiftly killing off turf at more than a dozen courses in South Carolina, golfers began moving their games elsewhere, setting off a panic.

China is the primary origin of precursor chemicals used to make fentanyl, the highly potent opioid underpinning a deadly drug epidemic in the United States.

The country's Ebola epidemic later forced the reserve to close down for a year.

According to the UN's health body, this convention "provides a global response to a global problem – namely, the tobacco epidemic".