Bill Gates, a renounced American business magnate, said it is high time for the world to be prepared to deal with a global epidemic.

He said now when the Ebola epidemic is subsiding people and governments across the world need to learn a lesson from it.

In an Op-ed in the New York Times, Gates stated that developing countries highly need technology to map epidemics. And several groups who work societal welfare need more number of volunteers and officials 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 said that the world needs to invest heavily to stop epidemics even before starting diagnostics, drugs and vaccines.

Gates at the Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conference told delegates that Ebola epidemic claimed the lives of more than 10,000 people, therefore, the world needs to prepare for the next major health crisis, he said.

He said that government and help from throughout the world anyhow managed to stop the spread of the Ebola epidemic. But next time we might not be that lucky, he added.

There are ample of technology tools that could be used to contain the spread of a virus. And governments must learn from how nations prepare for war. Gates affirmed that technology can play a vital role in helping to prevent the spread of a virus.

He suggested for a reserve ‘medical corps’, which could be very similar to the reserve armies that civilians can join.

Furthermore, he highlighted that advances in biology have drastically cut the time it takes to develop vaccines for new viruses.