The World Health Organisation has declared the novel coronavirus Covid-19 a global pandemic.
The definition means the highly infectious disease, for which there is no natural immunity, is rapidly spreading across the world beyond expectations.
And it means person to person transmission within communities is more likely, and that all Governments should make plans to deal with the crisis.
A pandemic means the disease is spread across a large area - where an epidemic would be restricted to one country or community.
The SARS outbreak in 2003 was not declared a pandemic.
