Global health body WHO declared on Friday that West Africa’s seven-month long Ebola outbreak was now an international public health emergency that required proper coordinated effort from both local and external players to stop it from spreading further.

West African nations have been ravaged by the worst Ebola outbreak in recorded history that sparked off in February this year and has killed over 932 people in Guinea, Sierra Leone, Liberia and recently Nigeria — Africa’s most densely populated country, with over 1,700 people repotedly infected.

“Countries affected to date simply do not have the capacity to manage an outbreak of this size and complexity on their own,” AP quoted WHO’s chief, Dr. Margaret Chan telling a press briefing on Friday. “I urge the international community to provide this support on the most urgent basis possible.”

WHO declared similar emergencies for the swine flu pandemic in 2009 and for polio in May.

The WHO chief, Dr. Margaret Chan, said the announcement is “a clear call for international solidarity” but acknowledged that many countries would probably not have any Ebola cases.

There is still no known treatment or vaccine for Ebola, a viral disease that kills up to 70 percent of its victims. Two American victims were however treated by an unregistered experimental drug developed at a small laboratory in the U.S., raising hopes for a cure or vaccine in the near future.

Several countries have come up with measure to prevent the disease from spreading into their borders including declaring west Africa a no-go zone for their citizens and installation of Ebola testing kits at the points of entry.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. have already elevated its Ebola response to the highest level and it has recommended against traveling to West Africa.

On Thursday, CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden told a Congressional hearing that the current outbreak is set to sicken more people than all previous outbreaks of the disease combined, AP reported.