Influenza victims crowd into an emergency hospital near Fort Riley, Kansas in this 1918 file photo.
Washington Post: World leaders rehearse for a pandemic that will come ‘sooner than we expect’
The government ministers were facing a new infectious disease outbreak. The mysterious virus was sickening and killing people with alarming speed. Some patients had to be placed on ventilators to help them breathe. The new virus seemed resistant to antibiotics and antiviral medicine.
Within a week, officials had closed a major hospital and schools and quarantined thousands of people. Fear and panic spread quickly as people in neighboring countries became infected and died.
That scenario was part of a pandemic simulation held during the World Bank’s annual meeting in Washington this month. It’s not the kind of event that people would typically associate with the World Bank. But it’s the fourth such exercise the bank has helped organize in the past year, reflecting what experts say is the growing awareness outside the traditional global health sector of the increasing threat and economic disruption posed by a global pandemic.
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WNU Editor: My brother is in the biotech field in Silicon Valley, and this is his biggest fear. He tried to raise VC money a few years back to research and develop new antibiotics and antiviral drugs .... he was not successful. I helped him by getting some Russians willing to invest in such a venture, but he had to set up shop in Saint Petersburg, Russia (a no go for him because the wife and kids want to stay in the Bay area). We as a species have been incredibly lucky to have not experienced a full blown pandemic in the past few decades. Unfortunately .... I am in agreement with my brother .... if history is any indication it is only a question of time before our luck runs out. And when that happens .... trust me on this one .... there will be no opposition to travel bans and closed borders.
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