Bill Gates: “If something is going to kill more than 10 million people in the next decades it will be a virus”

During the last days the Ted talk given by Bill gates five years ago in which he warned humanity that the next massive deaths would not occur through the action of nuclear war, but through a highly infectious virus.

In March 2015, the computer entrepreneur said “we have to act now, because the clock is ticking”. And, he called for “strengthening health systems in poor countries”, “having a reserve medical contingent” and “then equating these doctors with the military who have rapid capacity to mobilize.”

“If something is going to kill more than 10 million people in the next decades it will be a very infectious virus, more than a war”, he commented in the first 58 seconds of his speech.

“In part, the reason for this is that huge amounts have been invested in nuclear deterrents, but instead very little in systems to stop epidemics, we are not prepared for an epidemic.”, Add.

The American magnate remembers how the spread of Ebola – a virus that was first detected in Africa on February 26, 1976 – affected the world and maintained that the main problem of this disease “was not that the system did not work properly, but that we really had no system. ”

For example, there were no epidemiological teams, the reports were written and imprecise, there were no doctors to travel to deal with the crisis.

During the talk, the founder of Microsoft said that “hundreds of thousands of workers”, teams dedicated to the study of new treatment methods and experts focused on evaluating which medical instruments should be used are needed to cope with a pandemic.

“The WHO exists to monitor epidemics, but it doesn’t do what I’m talking about,” added Gates, criticizing the global health system.

The also philanthropist added that the epidemic could be tackled by building an effective medical and scientific system that would allow, for example, the dissemination of information to the public.

In addition, the world has biological breakthroughs that should enable it to build effective vaccines and drugs to fight disease.

On the other hand, the computer scientist calculated that the next pandemic would be highly costly for the planetary economic system.

“The World Bank estimates that a global flu epidemic would cost no less than three trillion dollars with millions upon millions of deaths.”