The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday gave the novel coronavirus at the center of an outbreak in China an official name: COVID-19.

The name is in reference to the disease, not the virus itself.

“We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, or an individual or group of people,” Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO's director-general, told NBC News.

As of Tuesday, there have been more than 42,000 confirmed cases of the virus, the mast majority in China, where the outbreak started.

Over 1,000 people have died from the virus. The U.S. has 13 reported cases of the COVID-19 coronavirus as of Tuesday.