This Is How Bill Gates Says We Can Avoid Another Global Health Crisis

Now that the Ebola crisis is subsiding, Bill Gates says we need to learn from it. And he has a few suggestions.

In an op-ed in the New York Times, Gates says developing countries need technology to map epidemics, groups need ways to more efficiently mobilize large numbers of volunteers and officials need to develop more sophisticated methods of keeping data on an outbreak.

“If anything good can come from this continuing tragedy, it is that Ebola can awaken the world to a sobering fact: We are simply not prepared to deal with a global epidemic,” he wrote.

Gates also says the world should invest heavily to stop epidemics before they begin through diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.

The Ebola epidemic claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people. “We know the cost of failing to act,” Gates said.

[NYT]

Write to Tessa Berenson at tessa.berenson@time.com.