Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is known as a person who has predicted technological advances as well as health crises and pandemics. In a TED Talk in 2015, Gates warned that a pandemic was coming and the world was not ready. More recently, his warnings have focused on another threat to global security: bioterrorism .
According to Interpol, bioterrorism refers to "the deliberate release of biological agents or toxins with the intent to harm or kill humans, animals, or plants with the intent of intimidating or coercing a government or population into doing a particular thing."
In a recent interview with the BBC, British journalist Amol Rajan asked Gates what he thought was the big future threat facing humanity that we're not thinking about enough.
Bioterrorism and pandemics are similar, Gates says, because they expose humanity to dangerous and even deadly diseases, but "bioterrorism is a little harder to defend against because whoever is trying to do it is doing it knowingly and understand the defense against this system.”
Interpol says there is enough information available to show that some individuals and terrorist groups have the ability and intent to use biological agents to cause harm to society.
As he did when he warned that we were inadequately prepared for a pandemic before the coronavirus took hold, Gates has called for greater investment in technology to detect and respond to bioterrorist attacks.
Gates, the world's fifth richest man and second largest contributor to the World Health Organization, believes we must strengthen our international cooperation and global health systems to ensure the world is better prepared against biological threats.
Source: Euronews
