GENEVA, Switzerland (CMC) — The United Nations health agency on Wednesday appealed to Caribbean and other countries to  “double-down” on their efforts to stop the spread of COVID-19, after announcing that the global emergency can now be described as a pandemic.

UN Secretary-General António Guterres described the announcement as “a call to action for everyone, everywhere”.

Speaking in Geneva, World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus insisted that the fact that the term was being used did not mean that the virus had the upper hand.

 “It doesn’t change what WHO is doing, and it doesn’t change what countries should do,” he said, urging Caribbean and other governments to pursue containment and isolation measures to prevent the virus from spreading.

Latest WHO data indicates more than 118,000 cases of infection in 114 countries, and 4,291 deaths – a 13-fold increase outside China in the past two weeks, and a threefold rise in the number of affected countries.

With thousands more “fighting for their lives” in hospitals, Tedros noted that the toll was likely to climb in coming days and weeks.

Despite this bleak forecast, the WHO Director-General pointed out the vast majority of countries were still relatively untouched by COVID-19, which first surfaced in central China last December.

In a message released late on Wednesday, Guterres said that the new pandemic phase in the fight is “a call for responsibility and solidarity as nations united, and as people united”.

“As we fight the virus, we cannot let fear go viral,” he said, stating that, “together, we can still change the course of this pandemic – but that means addressing inaction”.