“Prophetic” quotes from Bill Gates speech [1] at the Munich Security Conference on February 17, 2017 , setting the stage f:

“I decided 20 years ago to make global health the focus of my philanthropic work”…I spend a lot of my time on the effort to eradicate polio…

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 . . . or a super contagious and deadly strain of the flu….The point is, we ignore the link between health security and international security at our peril.

The good news is that with advances in biotechnology, new vaccines and drugs can help prevent epidemics from spreading out of control.

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.

We took an important step last month with the launch of a new public-private partnership called the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). The hope is that CEPI will enable the world to produce safe, effective vaccines as quickly as new threats emerge.

The really big breakthrough potential is in emerging technology platforms that leverage recent advances in genomics to dramatically reduce the time needed to develop vaccines… synthetic genetic material that instructs your cells to make a vaccine inside your own body.  And the great thing is that once you’ve built a vaccine platform for one pathogen, you can use it again for other pathogens. You only need to substitute a few genes.

The third thing we need to do is prepare for epidemics the way the military prepares for war.

It is encouraging that global alliances like the G7 and the G20 are beginning to focus on pandemic preparedness…

Pandemics are everyone’s problem—and as leaders, we cannot ignore it.

…we face today with biological threats. We may not know if that weapon is man-made or a product of nature. But one thing we can be almost certain of.  A highly lethal global pandemic will occur in our lifetimes.

I view the threat of deadly pandemics right up there with nuclear war and climate change.