Microsoft founder Bill Gates has warned world leaders about the potential of bioterrorism to destroy tens of millions of people. He adds that is a bigger threat to humanity than nuclear war. Revealing the current lack of any effective response measures to deal with an imminent bioweapon attack, he urges governments to prepare for the worst.
The billionaire businessman-turned-philanthropist revealed that there is great chance for the next epidemic to originate from a computer screen. Speaking to an audience at the Munich Security Conference, he implies that terrorists are turning to modern technology to impose danger on the world. Ominously, he talks about an outbreak lurking on the horizon, and urges leaders around the globe to start working on effective combat measures for these epidemics the same way we prepare for war.
According to the Daily Express, the prime minister of Norway and Bill Gates' co-panelist, Erna Solberg, agrees with the philanthropist by saying that violence is now killing fewer people than ever before. However, virus and bacteria are spreading more quickly. “We have forgotten how catastrophic those epidemics have been,” she says.
“It's not if, but when," Peter Salama, executive director of the World Health Organization, adds on the imminence of such bioterrorism attacks. Public officials and those with power need to ramp up preparedness for such events, he stresses. Mr Gates elaborates on the scale of the potential disaster by saying that natural epidemics can be extremely large, but epidemics caused deliberately, such as bioterrorism, would cause greater damage, the Market Watch erports.
With nuclear weapons, it's easy to imagine that it'll stop after killing 100 million. However, it's not the case with smallpox, for example. If genetically-engineered killer microbes got out and spread, it would kill a larger number, Bill Gates warns.
