WHO: Ebola outbreak in West Africa is an international public health emergency

On Friday, the World Health Organization declared that the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is an international public health emergency.

The organization says that 932 people have died from the virus since March, the worst outbreak known to occur since Ebola was discovered nearly 40 years ago. The majority of the cases are in Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea, with five infections reported in Nigeria.

The WHO is not calling for global travel or trade bans, The New York Times reports, but it does believe that if an Ebola outbreak has happened in a country, its head of state needs to declare a national emergency. "A coordinated international response is deemed essential to stop and reverse the international spread of Ebola," the organization said in a statement.

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