What Global Disease Threat Worries Public-Health Officials Most?

Infectious-disease outbreaks not only have the potential to destabilize societies, they pose a threat to international economies, as well.

What should public-health officials and businesses be doing to prepare?

Physicians Thomas Frieden, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Susan Desmond-Hellmann, chief executive of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, sat down with Wall Street Journal Assistant Managing Editor Laura Landro to discuss this issue. Edited excerpts follow.