PHOTO CREDIT: TREVOR SNAPP FOR INTRAHEALTH INTERNATIONAL Health workers throughout South and Central America will need training and resources to address Zika’s short-and long-term effects. The Zika and Ebola epidemics have forced a change in how health investments are viewed, placing us at a crossroads in the evolution of national health systems. Heads of state, ministries of finance, and other non-health sector leaders are finally realizing that the cost—in loss of life, in political capital, and in GDP—of not investing in health systems and health workers is greater than the cost of initial investments in them. Zika has even swayed the Pope to call contraception a “lesser evil” for women who want to avoid having babies with Zika-caused microcephaly. As a global community, we must encourage and fund Zika-affected countries to launch resilient responses to the epidemic. In the short term, these resilient responses could halt the Zika epidemic. In the medium and long term, they would build the countries’ health systems and health workforces and leave them better able to respond to future crises. The global community must learn from this tragedy. Not only must we establish best practices in responding to epidemics, we must fund research into what happens to the children affected by Zika. What interventions help them? What is their prognosis, and what factors can be used to predict that prognosis? What cost-effective systems can be designed to provide them with lifelong support? What new training do health workers need to meet their needs? As we continue to see the effects of climate change and human encroachment on natural habitats, mosquito-borne illnesses and other unexpected epidemics will continue to present us with grave challenges. If we don’t invest in solutions now, the human and financial costs down the road will dwarf today’s hefty Zika mortgage. And unlike in the early days of the HIV epidemic, the global community will not be able to say we didn’t see it coming. GHD 26 GLOBAL HEALTH CHALLENGES