Billionaire Bill Gates, the Microsoft (MSFT) co-founder turned philanthropist, has issued a word of warning.
Considering his past track record when predicting threats to world health, it might be wise to pay attention.
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In a 2015 TED Talk, Gates suggested that a big concern for the future was a pandemic. It was only five years later when covid struck.
Now, Gates says he worries a lot about bioterrorism.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines bioterrorism as "the intentional release of viruses, bacteria, or other germs that can sicken or kill people, livestock, or crops."
Gates, in a Feb. 3 BBC interview, compared the threats posed by bioterror and pandemics.
"Bioterror is a little harder to defend against, because whoever’s trying to do it," Gates said, is doing it "consciously and understands your defense system, so they can be trying to design around them."
The CDC says that an anthrax attack is high on its list of concerns.
"If a bioterrorist attack were to happen, Bacillus anthracis, the bacteria that causes anthrax, would be one of the biological agents most likely to be used," the CDC writes on its website.
Anthrax spores are easily found in nature and can be produced in a lab, the CDC says.
In 2001, shortly after the September 11 terror attacks, anthrax was distributed in letters through the U.S. mail.
"Five Americans were killed and 17 were sickened in what became the worst biological attacks in U.S. history," according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).
The FBI investigation into the matter, which was code-named "Amerithrax," eventually culminated in an announcement that charges were to be brought against Dr. Bruce Irvins, a microbiologist at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases in Maryland.
Irvins committed suicide before the charges were filed.
