All 3 Uses

epidemic
in
Cold Sassy Tree
(Auto-generated)

She used to tell about a Confederate soldier from Cold Sassy who got sent to Andersonville to guard Yankee prisoners and passed away in the smallpox epidemic there.†
We had our share of cotton-gin fires, epidemics, storms, and lawsuits, of course, but the only diversion we could count on was protracted meetings, recitals, ice cream socials, fish fries, and lectures — a doctor talking up his cure for cancer, an old man telling how he tracked a mammoth moose for nineteen days back in 1856, a young fellow talking about "Across Asia on a Bicycle."†
I don't want no epidemic gittin' started in this town.
*

epidemic = a widespread outbreak of an infectious disease

Definitions:

(1) (epidemic)
a widespread outbreak of a disease that is passed from one person (or other organism) to another

or more rarely: anything that spreads quickly -- especially something bad
(2) (meaning too rare to warrant focus)