Bill Gates Explains How To Prevent The Next Pandemic

His proposals for nipping infections in the bud are worth exploring

First, the climate. Next, plagues. Bill Gates's career switch from entrepreneur and philanthropist to crusading author is developing nicely. It is just over a year since he published How To Avoid A Climate Disaster. Now he sets out to explain How To Prevent The Next Pandemic.

Both books consider what might be described as human-created natural disasters. Some disasters hurricanes, earthquakes, tsunamis - are purely natural. The best people can do when dealing with these is to anticipate them through things like warning systems, planning codes and reinforced buildings. Others, such as war, have human causes. They may sometimes have a natural trigger, such as a drought that sets populations on the move. But human beings inflict the damage.

Climate change and epidemics are halfway between these extremes. They are caused by people interacting with nature - in one case by altering the atmosphere's chemical make-up, in the other through actions ranging from inadequate disposal of sewage to international jet travel and sexual activity.

As Dr Larry Brilliant, one of the epidemiologists who helped to eradicate smallpox, observes: "Outbreaks are inevitable (the nature part of the equation) but pandemics are optional (the human part).” And that provides an opening for the sort of techno-optimistic approach that Mr Gates loves.