[Editor’s note: Excerpts are from an editorial written by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, regarding the potential dangers of fast-moving diseases spread by terrorists or nature.]
War zones and other fragile state settings are the most difficult places to eliminate epidemics…It’s also true that the next epidemic could originate on the computer screen of a terrorist intent on using genetic engineering to create a synthetic version of the smallpox virus….
The point is, we ignore the link between health security and international security at our peril. Whether it occurs by a quirk of nature or at the hand of a terrorist, epidemiologists say a fast-moving airborne pathogen could kill more than 30 million people in less than a year. And they say there is a reasonable probability the world will experience such an outbreak in the next 10-15 years.
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First and most importantly, we have to build an arsenal of new weapons—vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics.
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Vaccines can be especially important in containing epidemics. But today, it typically takes up to 10 years to develop and license a new vaccine. To significantly curb deaths from a fast-moving airborne pathogen, we would have to get that down considerably—to 90 days or less.
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[We need to] prepare for epidemics the way the military prepares for war. This includes germ games and other preparedness exercises so we can better understand how diseases will spread, how people will respond in a panic, and how to deal with things like overloaded highways and communications systems.The GLP aggregated and excerpted this blog/article to reflect the diversity of news, opinion, and analysis. Read full, original post: BILL GATES: A new kind of terrorism could wipe out 30 million people in less than a year — and we are not prepared
