WHO holds emergency Ebola meeting

The World Health Organization on Wednesday began a two-day emergency meeting on West Africa's Ebola epidemic, with the UN agency deciding whether to declare it an international crisis. The closed-door session is tasked with ruling whether the outbreak constitutes what is known in WHO-speak as a ‘public health emergency of international concern’. Taking the form of a telephone conference between senior WHO officials, representatives of affected countries, and experts from around the globe, the meeting is not expected to make its decision public until Friday. To date, the WHO has not issued global-level recommendations -- such as travel and trade restrictions -- related to the outbreak which began in Guinea and has spread to Liberia, Sierra Leone and Nigeria, according to AFP.