{"id":295649,"date":"2017-02-19T13:07:52","date_gmt":"2017-02-19T13:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=295649"},"modified":"2017-02-19T13:07:52","modified_gmt":"2017-02-19T13:07:52","slug":"bill-gates-warns-the-world-to-prep-for-bio-terrorism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/2017\/02\/bill-gates-warns-the-world-to-prep-for-bio-terrorism\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill Gates warns the world to prep for bio-terrorism"},"content":{"rendered":"
Bill Gates says it’s time to redirect some of the money the world spends on weapons to prepare for a looming threat: terrorists with pathogens.<\/p>\n
He’s warning that the threat of bio-terrorism is “right up there with nuclear war and climate change.”<\/p>\n
Gates spoke at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday, and an abridged transcript of his speech was published by Business Insider.<\/p>\n
The billionaire Microsoft (MSFT, Tech30) co-founder turned philanthropist has invested heavily in health initiatives around the globe, and now he’s speaking out in the hopes of spurring more investment in vaccines and medical research.<\/p>\n
He says it’s now necessary for the world to prep for what he considers to be one of its largest existential threats: the next pandemic.<\/p>\n
“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,” he said. “And they say there is a reasonable probability the world will experience such an outbreak in the next 10 to 15 years.”<\/p>\n
The most recent pandemic was even more deadly than that, Gates pointed out. A flu outbreak — that occurred naturally — killed between 50 million and 100 million people in 1918.<\/p>\n
Gates said modern technology can help prevent such a large-scale death toll.<\/p>\n
“The good news is that with advances in biotechnology, new vaccines and drugs can help prevent epidemics from spreading out of control,” he said — but that requires funding preventative research.<\/p>\n
“I’m optimistic that a decade from now, we can be much better prepared for a lethal epidemic if we’re willing to put a fraction of what we spend on defense budgets and new weapons systems into epidemic readiness,” he said.<\/p>\n
–<\/p>\n
Source: CNN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Bill Gates says it’s time to redirect some of the money the world spends on weapons to prepare for a looming threat: terrorists with pathogens. He’s warning that the threat of bio-terrorism is “right up there with nuclear war and climate change.” Gates spoke at the Munich Security Conference in Germany on Saturday, and an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":192674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[106],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n