Bill Gates, the founder of the Microsoft Company and a philanthropist has stated that "we're not ready for the next epidemic" in his TED Talk 5 years ago. He has used his speech to show us how bad an epidemic like the COVID-19 crisis would cause and why is it so prominent to have a defensive system to fight against an epidemic.

Photo source: TED Blog

He compared the money and time we have invested in nuclear deterrents and an emergency system to fight off a contagious disease. An infectious disease would kill millions of lives rather than a war nowadays.

Due to the fact that the talk was held in 2015, the year where the Ebola outbreak started, he has visualized that the next epidemic could be more devastating than the Ebola virus outbreak.

Source: Suliver

Take the Ebola virus as an example, why would it cause 10,000 deaths only? The reason is that we did not have a methodical system to fight against the disease. There were no medical teams or epidemiologists ready to go at any time and the cases or reports are quite inaccurate at the time. He has stated this as a "global failure". Another reason is that the pathogen is more feasible to be detected and it is not unbridled in the urban areas so it would not affect a much larger population.

Source: Bloomberg

He suggested that the world needs more preparedness and much more advanced technologies should be implemented in the system.

Although the Ebola virus is much more deadly than the coronavirus today, the Ebola virus has only infected around 20,000 people whereas this COVID-19 virus has infected 7.82 million people and the number might still be surging. It has been six months since the first infection occurred and there is no vaccine yet.

So, have we actually learned how to control a virus outbreak?

Source: TED Talks

Cover Photo: Devex || The Edge Markets