In 2003 a doctor with SARS unknowingly infected several guests while staying at a Hong Kong hotel, and overnight the virus reached across the globe. China is currently battling a bird flu that kills nearly half of the people infected. If Ebola, which transmits through fluids, were spread by air, or if Zika, which has reached over 50 countries, were as deadly as Ebola, we would be facing an unprecedented catastrophe. An uncontrolled outbreak or bioterror attack could result in a contagion that kills over 30 million people.
We fear it is only a matter of time before we face a deadlier and more contagious pathogen, yet the threat of a deadly pandemic remains dangerously overlooked. Pandemics now occur with greater frequency, due to factors such as climate change, urbanization, and international travel. Other factors, such as a weak World Health Organization and potentially massive cuts to funding for U.S. scientific research and foreign aid, including funding for the United Nations, stand to deepen our vulnerability. We also face the specter of novel and mutated pathogens that could spread and kill faster than diseases we have seen before. With the advent of genome-editing technologies, bioterrorists could artificially engineer new plagues, a threat that Ashton Carter, the former U.S. secretary of defense, thinks could rival nuclear weapons in deadliness.
The two of us have advised the president of Guinea on stopping Ebola. In addition, we have worked on ways to contain the spread of Zika and have informally advised U.S. and international organizations on the matter. Our experiences tell us that the world is unprepared for these threats.
We urgently need to change this trajectory. There is no border wall against disease. Pandemics are an existential threat on par with climate change and nuclear conflict. We are at a critical crossroads, where we must either take the steps needed to prepare for this threat or become even more vulnerable. It is only a matter of time before we are hit by a deadlier, more contagious pandemic. Will we be ready?
Dennis Edwards: Of course the unspoken solution is some kind of "higher government" that can implement a global solution. Maybe they are implying we need to give more power to the United Nations as the USA under Trump is acting unilaterally to the world's disadvantage. We hear the call constantly for World Government, i.e., a righteous world government. Unknown to many, the Bible predicts such a government, which comes in peaceably, helps the poor, may even help solve the Middle East problem, or try to. But in the end, rather than bringing great solutions, it brings in the most horrendous period of world history, spoken of by Jesus as the Great Tribulation. Every day we move closer and closer to these shocking events. Are you ready?
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