"widespread epidemic" is correct and commonly used in written English.
You can use it to describe a widespread outbreak of a disease or illness that affects a large population. For example, you could say "The country was gripped by a widespread epidemic of the flu, causing many schools and businesses to shut down."
"It really will be sexual transmission that will lead to a widespread epidemic and lead to catastrophe," she said.
The nation continues to suffer through a widespread epidemic to prescription opioids and their illegal cousin, heroin.
He told The Post last week that he hopes to "find out," through the work of the commission, whether voter fraud is a widespread epidemic in this country.
Even when governments do call cholera by its name and start inviting international help and expertise, the W.H.O. and Unicef are bureaucracies -- and such invitations can come weeks after a widespread epidemic is under way.
"This is a large and growing epidemic that has the potential to move from where it is now -- in focused risk groups -- to become a very widespread epidemic," said Dr. Helene D. Gayle, the director of the disease control agency's National Center for H.I.V., S.T.D. and TB Prevention, at the end of her visit here.
Bankole Johnson, chairman of the psychiatry department at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, said the opioid crisis is a particularly widespread epidemic, striking not only populations considered at high risk for illegal drug use but also those who become hooked on doctor-prescribed painkillers.
Widespread epidemics in birds appear to increase the opportunity for more people to become infected with avian influenza.
Generations of people have used the term to describe widespread epidemics of influenza, cholera and other diseases.
Other lost battles in 1866 68, as well as widespread epidemics of Asiatic cholera, devastated the population of the country.
Smallpox was another dreaded disease in Civil War camps, but soldiers were fortunate that a vaccine had been developed that helped prevent widespread epidemics.
Widespread epidemics of cholera and plague reduced populations of humans in some areas of the world by more than one-third.
