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The World Health Organiztion declared the global COVID-19 crisis a pandemic at a press conference Tuesday.

"Pandemic is not a word to be use lightly or carelessly," WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said. "It's a word that if misused can cause unreasonable fear or unjustified acceptance that the fight is over, leading to unnecessary suffering and death."

Ghebreyesus said he's "deeply concerned by the alarming levels of spread and severity.” In the days and weeks ahead he said he expects the number of cases and deaths will climb even higher.

There are now more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 people have lost their lives. That said, Ghebreyesus out that 81 countries haven't reported any cases and 57 countries have 10 cases or less.

"We can not say this loudly enough or clearly enough or often enough, all countries can still change the course of this pandemic," he said. "If countries detect, test, treat, isolate, trace and mobilize their people in the response, those with a handful of cases can prevent those cases from becoming clusters and those clusters from becoming community transmission. Even those countries with community transmission or larger clusters can turn the tide on this virus."

Watch the press conference on Facebook.

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The WHO said Iran and Italy are the new front lines of the battle against the virus that started in China.

“They’re suffering but I guarantee you other countries will be in that situation soon," said Dr. Mike Ryan, the WHO's emergencies chief.

He added that the agency thought long and hard about labeling the crisis a pandemic — meaning a new virus causing sustained outbreaks in multiple regions of the world.

The risk of employing the term, Ryan said, is “if people use it as an excuse to give up.”

But the likely benefits, are “potentially of galvanizing the world to fight.”

Underscoring the mounting challenge: Italy’s cases soared again, to 12,462 infections and 827 deaths — both numbers second only to China.

In the U.S., the caseload passed 1,000, and outbreaks on both sides of the country stirred alarm.

In the Mideast, the vast majority of the nearly 10,000 cases are in Iran or involve people who traveled there. Iran announced another increase in cases Wednesday to 9,000.

In Europe, Spain's number of cases surged Wednesday past the 2,000 mark and Belgium, Bulgaria, Sweden, Albania and Ireland all announced their first virus-related deaths.

In Germany, Chancellor Angela Merkel said that if the virus is not halted by vaccines and cures, up to 70% of the country’s 83 million people could ultimately become infected, citing estimates that epidemiologists have been putting forward for several weeks. Germany has some 1,300 confirmed infection. Merkel’s comments fit a pattern of government officials using sobering warnings to try to get people to protect themselves, most notably by washing their hands and not gathering in large numbers.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Amy Graff is a digital editor with SFGATE. Email her news tips and photos at agraff@sfgate.com.

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