In an op-ed he wrote in the New York Times, Bill Gates recounts the biggest lesson the world learned in the latest Ebola crisis and what everyone can do to avoid another epidemic.
He began by giving some grim statistics about the recent Ebola that has hit West Africa: so far, over 10,000 people have already died, including some health workers. He then went on to say that in the coming years, the biggest threat to health is an epidemic and not necessarily Ebola. Flu, for instance, can be a source of quick and widespread epidemic since it's highly infectious and the virus travels by air. It can be recalled that the Spanish Flu, which has also become an epidemic, killed over 3% of the world's population at the time.
During the Ebola crisis, most of the concerns revolve around how the needed systems seem to be ineffective. But for Gates, the major problem was there wasn't any reliable one at all.
He then cited that developing and poor nations where an epidemic would most likely begin, as in the case of the recent Ebola, there's a lack of proper surveillance. There was no case mapping and determining travel patterns to predict where the next outbreak would be.
It took the time for emergency help to arrive, and some of the first responders weren't the government but non-profit and volunteer organizations such as Doctors without Borders. There were many logistical challenges, and obtaining data was chaotic, which resulted to inaccurate reporting.
He also pointed out that, despite having so many modern technologies and better science today, there wasn't a reliable way of diagnosing and treating the disease including a vaccine. Gates's foundation donated $50 million at the height of the crisis.
Nevertheless, he's positive that every crisis, even an epidemic, can be resolved with innovation and ingenuity. These include setting up a global warning and response system, improving the health care of poor countries, and training health workers to understand and keep track of disease patterns. He also believes it's high time to create a centralized and well-managed database for disease surveillance and speed up the approval process of possible treatments for diseases.