Tedros Adhanom Quotes

Pandemics happen. They have happened three times in the last 100 years…. They change the politics, the culture, the society. Pandemics do that …. Pandemics reshape history …. The likelihood of a pandemic is almost certain…. The consequences are worldwide.

Unfortunately, infectious diseases don’t pay much attention to budget cycles.

We've all learned about this disease since it was first discovered several years ago in Europe. And so I think we've learned from the European experience.

When we think of the major threats to our national security, the first to come to mind are nuclear proliferation, rogue states and global terrorism. But another kind of threat lurks beyond our shores, one from nature, not humans - an avian flu pandemic.

This syndrome, SARS, is now a worldwide health threat... The world needs to work together to find its cause, cure the sick and stop its spread.

Pandemics happen. When they do, they change the world.

Global pandemics---whether naturally occurring or intentionally spread---pose a greater threat than most man-made weapons of mass destruction.

We have to keep up our guard. We won't get the risk of Ebola to zero in the U.S. until we stop it in West Africa. And Ebola is hard to fight. It requires intensity. It requires speed and flexibility.

The border patrol gave us a list of the diseases that they're concerned about, and Ebola was one of those.

After all it really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic.

Influenza pandemics must be taken seriously, precisely because of their capacity to spread rapidly to every country in the world.

This is an industry that doesn't have the common cold... It has cholera.

A pandemic influenza would mean widespread infection essentially throughout every region of the world.

We saw in 2003 the beginnings of an outbreak of an illness called SARS. SARS ended up killing 800 people which is a significant number of deaths, but nowhere near as high as it could have been.

I believe we have to nip Ebola in the bud before it spreads through Africa and to other countries.

Infectious diseases ... have probably been the most dangerous of enemies of mankind, much more so than war and mass murder. When one studies the constant epidemics of the past and the deficiency diseases on land and at sea, one realizes that the whole of civilization could have succumbed, and one is constantly surprised that mankind has survived.

Avian flu, which has already killed 50 people, is only a mutation away from being transmissible from person to person. We have no immunity, no vaccines, and no cure. It is imperative that we strengthen our domestic vaccine supply, expand legal protections, encourage collaboration between the public and private sectors, and advance research and development. These initiatives will help protect us from a deadly viral outbreak that experts warn could come to our shores any day.

Smallpox is the only human infectious disease ever eradicated by science.

Influenza killed more people in September, October, and November of 1918 than AIDS killed in all the years since it entered the human population.

History has told us that no one can stop a pandemic. The question is: when is it going to happen? I don't think anybody has the answer to it. We have to be on the lookout for any time, any day.

We can't predict when infectios diseases will break out, but their breakout is inevitable. That is why we must be prepared.

The worst pandemic in modern history was the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed tens of millions of people. Today, with how interconnected the world is, it would spread faster.

Humankind is no stranger to calamitous outbreaks of diseases.

I've had to confront a lot of pandemics and infectious diseases around the globe.

Of course when you look back from all the pandemics that have happened in the world, they were really scary.