World Health body meets in Geneva

The World Health Organization convenes an emergency meeting in Geneva to decide whether the rising rate of confirmed cases, most of them in Saudi Arabia, constitutes a “public health emergency of international concern.” The last time the agency set up an emergency committee was in response to the 2009 H1N1 “swine flu” pandemic.

White House spokesman Jay Carney says the CDC “is taking the current situation very seriously and is working in close coordination with local health authorities,” and adds that President Barack Obama had been briefed on the confirmed cases.