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President Obama is urging the international community to view outbreaks of Ebola, MERS and other deadly diseases as global security threats that require broad and rapid responses to protect the safety of populations and economies.
Top U.S. officials from the White House, Pentagon and State Department met with representatives from 44 countries and multilateral agencies, including the United Nations and World Bank, to call for implementation of 7-year-old global standards for dealing with deadly epidemics and other health dangers, including biological attacks.
Front and center of the discussion was the worst-ever outbreak of the deadly Ebola virus, which has killed nearly 3,000 people in West Africa over the past six months and could reach a total number of 20,000 cases by November.
"In a world as interconnected as ours, outbreaks anywhere, even in the most remote villages, in the remote corners of the world, have the potential to
