Overpowering fear about backing medicine for widespread illness (8)
I believe the answer is:
pandemic
'widespread illness' is the definition.
Although both the answer and definition are singular nouns, I don't understand how they can define each other.
'overpowering fear about backing medicine' is the wordplay.
'overpowering fear' becomes 'panic' (I've seen this before).
'about' means one lot of letters goes inside another.
'backing' says the letters should be written in reverse.
'medicine' becomes 'med' (as in the informal term 'meds').
'med' written backwards gives 'dem'.
'panic' going around 'dem' is 'PANDEMIC'.
'for' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for pandemic that I've seen before include "Denim cap (anag.)" , "widely affecting population" , "serious outbreak" , "Widely spread disease" , "Existing everywhere" .)