In June 2012, the world missed a deadline, without fanfare and without public outcry: Eighty percent of countries failed to meet the global timeline to be prepared to battle biological threats like Ebola.
Two years, thousands of lives, and billions of dollars later, most countries still don't have in place all the capacity they need to prevent Ebola from spreading or other biological threats from igniting. Consequently, we don't have in place the global system we need — the smoke alarm — to alert us when an outbreak flares.
The United States developed and launched the Global Health Security Agenda to establish urgently the system required to prevent, detect, and rapidly extinguish outbreaks before they become epidemics, starting in the most vulnerable nations. This lack of preparedness is an emergency — it extends beyond West Africa, and we have asked Congress for the funding we need to start now in the most vulnerable nations.
Fonte: White House