Current global disease control focuses almost exclusively on responding to epidemics after they have already spread globally. Nevertheless, dramatic failures in such pandemic control, such as the ongoing lack of success in HIV vaccine development twenty-five years into the pandemic, have shown that this wait-and-respond approach is not sufficient, and that the development of systems to prevent novel pandemics before they are established should be considered a human health imperative. Had we had such systems in place thirty years ago we may have averted the HIV pandemic. more »