Introduction

Catastrophic pandemics have beleaguered humankind throughout the history, with the last severe pandemic (Spanish flu pandemic of 1918) taking place a century ago, before many modern medical specialties established their fields of interest and research. Recent outbreaks of Zika, MERS, Ebola, and SARS, among others, have drawn global attention to a possibility of a real pandemic in the twenty-first century, reinvigorating the interest in pandemic research. The international public health community now actively seeks to identify infectious diseases that can pose a public health risk because of their epidemic potential and for which there are no countermeasures. Participation of mental health experts in such projects still remains negligible or very limited. When designing an approach to mental health response to a pandemic outbreak, there are several crucial idiosyncrasies in pandemic mental health that make it stand out and make it worth a more serious consideration in literature and research.