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Thank you for this article. Mr. Hatfill explains better than I could why it is certain that something like Ebola, Avian Flu or SARS will get by us sometime:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/10/21-days/381901/?single_page=true

"… Ebola is the prototype of an emerging infectious disease in that it is, importantly, a zoonotic virus (transmitted from animals to people). This is the route of introduction of the world’s most virulent new pathogens. During the past 30 years, to Hatfill’s knowledge, 41 new infectious organisms or strains have crossed from animal hosts into humans. The period between 2010 and 2014 alone saw the advent of the MERS Coronavirus, the Bas-Congo Rhabdovirus (which causes a hemorrhagic fever, similar to Ebola), ongoing Monkeypox outbreaks, and a rash of Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in addition to the ongoing West African Ebola outbreak.
… The risk for human infection by these viruses depends, initially, on human-animal interactions. Bats are a prime example of a reservoir for RNA viruses that cross between species and infect people. Those the sub-order that include the now-notorious fruit bats have been implicated in RNA-viral outbreaks among the most lethal infectious diseases: Ebola, Marburg, Hendra, Hipah, SARS, MERS, and the Australian lyssaviruses. Those interactions are driven by the expanding human population (which has doubled worldwide in the past three decades). They are also driven by animal-habitat fragmentation, losses in biodiversity, and war.
Many of the deadly emerging RNA viruses arise, as Hatfill makes clear in his work, from biodiversity hotspots—regions that house at least 1,500 species of vascular plants and have lost at least 70 percent of their vegetation. These biodiversity hotspots are home to more than half of the world's plant and non-fish animal species, as well as more than a billion of the world’s poorest people. The regions also involve more than 90 percent of recent armed conflict. Refugees hunt for meat and build remote encampments, increasing pressure on local resources and interfering with wildlife, drawing people into the line of fire between the viruses and their animal reservoirs. And so it is there that Hatfill believes efforts to manage inevitable future outbreaks must focus.
… Hatfill: … People that have been trapping bats and other animals in these high biodiversity areas are finding viral sequences, and we don't know what they're from. This is not in the GenBank database. So there are things lurking out there we don't have a clue about. How do you get a rabies virus that causes hemorrhagic fever? Well, going back through the literature, there's a fish virus that can cause hemorrhagic septicemia. The frequency that these things are happening is very disturbing. Just remember, our population's doubled in 27 years. So you encroach on animal habitats, or you fragment those animal habitats, you disrupt the ecology, the normal food sources.
At the moment, it's the fruit bats. And their range extends way past Africa, the ones that are transmitting this. We found Ebola Zaire antibodies in bats in Bangladesh, and as far over as Borneo, although that paper needs some reassessment. [Ed: There is evidence that filoviruses (Ebola among them) may be harbored across a larger geographic range than some previously assumed. Contested evidence of Ebola Zaire has been reported in orangutans in Borneo.] So that's a huge swath of land down into northern Australia, India, and over. So the more these habitats become fragmented, and the bats move closer to humans—the fruit bats, especially. You cut down their forest, you build orchards, where are they going to go? To the orchards. And these bats are carrying everything from the Hendra virus in Australia, that unusual outbreak in the mid-90s, to the Nipah virus in Malaysia. And we're going to put 4,000 troops in the middle of this habitat. Are you going to tell the bats not to poop on the soldiers?
… Hatfill: … Chikungunya is Swahili for “walks bent over.” It attacks the synovial membranes in your joints. It's agonizing. In fact, you're afraid you won't die. But most people get through it. It was, a hundred years ago, a fairly benign disease. There was a lot of travel between India and Durban in South Africa. Commerce, personnel, people, immigrants, back and forth. And the population density ramped up. It’s an RNA virus—you won't find an RNA virus that has more than about 10 genes or so, because any more than that it's made so many mistakes as it's replicated its genome, it's nonfunctional. So it doesn't get propagated. Some time over the last 100 years, one of these strains had a single mutation that enabled it to replicate to a higher titer inside the mosquito, and now that's the dominant form, which means these patients are getting a higher dose of virus. As with any infectious disease agent, the bigger dose you're exposed to, the quicker and more severe are going to be your symptoms.
Hamblin: You write about the role of conflict and war in viral outbreaks.
Hatfill: Eighty percent of the conflicts fought since 1953 have been in stressed high-biodiversity areas. This is asking for trouble. … You put your troops in there and wonder why they get Korean hemorrhagic fever in Korea. I don't know where those fruit bats have gone. They're migrating at the moment. This is why there are these periodic outbreaks here and there.
Hamblin: The idea of a travel ban has been so controversial.
Hatfill: Not to other countries.
Hamblin: To the U.S. it has.
Hatfill: When the SARS epidemic happened, Singapore came very close to being wiped out. People don't realize this. And over there, if you chew gum or spit on the street, they cane you. Singapore had this under control overnight, and all their contact tracings were confined to their house, to the point where they would phone you every hour and you'd better answer the phone or the cops came by to arrest you. And they stopped it.
Hamblin: So you think this is a tip-of-the-iceberg situation, this outbreak?
Hatfill: Here's a very good example. In 1993, 1994 somewhere I think in that timeframe, we almost lost every lion in the Serengeti. The Distemper virus jumped from the wild African dogs into the great cats and it slaughtered them. They had no immunity. And they had to go in and vaccinate wild lions.
Hamblin: They did that with darts?
Hatfill: I forget how they did it.
Hamblin: They could tranquilize them.
Hatfill: I heard rumors of infected meat. I don't know how that would work. But 80, 90 percent of the population crashed. Mother Nature tends to do that. We're not there yet. But when's our next doubling time for population?
Hamblin: It's not long. I know the over-65 population in the U.S. is doubling in the next 25 years.
Hatfill: With poor immune systems because they're older, susceptible to all sorts of stuff. And now China's moving everybody into high-density urban areas. They built these huge cities, million person cities, and there's nobody in there. And they're going to relocate their rural population. Why? Because it stimulates consumer spending and provides jobs. This is their grand plan. Well this is where all the flu viruses mix and come from. God knows what that will generate. This is a serious problem. It's not something that can be ignored any longer."