What does it mean that WHO declared a coronavirus pandemic? What you should know

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WHO declares coronavirus pandemic 1:49

(CNN) - The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the new outbreak of coronavirus is a pandemic.

There are 118,000 cases, more than 4,000 deaths, the agency said, and the virus has found a foothold on all continents, except in Antarctica.

“We have never seen a pandemic caused by a coronavirus before. And we have never seen a pandemic that can be controlled at the same time, ”said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus on Wednesday.

“Describing the situation as a pandemic does not change the WHO assessment of the threat posed by this coronavirus. It doesn't change what WHO is doing, and it doesn't change what countries should do. ”

If countries detect, examine, treat, isolate, track and mobilize their people to respond, those with a handful of new cases of coronaviruses can prevent those cases from becoming groups, and those groups become community transmission, Ghebreyesus said. .

"Several countries have shown that this virus can be suppressed and controlled," Ghebreyesus said.

A pandemic is defined as the "worldwide spread" of a new disease. Considering that an outbreak is the occurrence of cases of diseases that exceed what is normally expected, an epidemic is more than a normal number of cases of diseases, specific health-related behaviors or other health-related events in a community or region , according to the World Health Organization.

In January, WHO declared that the new outbreak of coronavirus was a public health emergency of international interest. CNN announced Monday that it is using the term pandemic to describe the current outbreak of coronavirus.

The last pandemic reported in the world was the H1N1 flu pandemic in 2009, which killed hundreds of thousands worldwide.

"WHO has been assessing this outbreak for the entire time and we are deeply concerned with both the alarming levels of spread and severity, and the alarming levels of inaction," Ghebreyesus said.

"We cannot say this clearer or louder, or often enough: all countries can still change the course of this pandemic."

Pandemic