What is an Iceberg Disease?

The iceberg phenomenon refers to the fact that a typical patient with a certain disease or health problem can only find a small part of all forms of the disease or health problem in the population. Like icebergs in the sea, most of them are submerged .

Iceberg phenomenon

Recessive infection-based infectious diseases are a common type of infectious diseases, with only a small proportion of patients showing typical symptoms and signs clinically, and severe cases and deaths are even rarer. The epidemiology of this infection situation is called the "iceberg phenomenon". The reason why this infection state is likened to "iceberg" is that after people are infected, patients with obvious symptoms and signs can be observed as the apex of the iceberg exposed on the sea is very rare, and most of the infection is clinical It cannot be seen from above, it is like a huge mountain hidden below the sea level.