Rift Valley fever, Japanese encephalitis, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever and many others lie in wait, and they are less remote than most Americans realize. Crimean-Congo fever, despite its exotic hybrid Russian-African name, circulates even in Spain. It killed someone there last year.

The early-warning system that protects America against viruses resembles the one that protects it against missiles. A network of laboratories around the world, known as World Health Organization reference labs, collects samples from disease outbreaks in local humans, animals and even insects.

Researchers share the genetic sequences, track dangerous mutations, and ship virus samples on to more sophisticated labs that can turn them into vaccines.

Only a tiny number of these sentinel laboratories are in American hands. The Navy runs two in Egypt and Cambodia, for example. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, of course, is one of the apex labs in the W.H.O. reference system, like the top labs in Paris, Moscow and Beijing.

But the system’s furthest-flung sentries — the ones most likely to make first contact with a new viral foe — are those in the world’s poorest countries. These labs are often the descendants of British, French, Dutch or Belgian facilities founded during the colonial era or those started by the Soviets.

Vital as they are to global health, they are usually underfunded and underequipped, and their personnel undertrained. The Fogarty center helps remedy that.

Dr. Bausch has a $50,000 Fogarty grant to plan what could turn into a $2 million to $3 million investment in Sierra Leone, one of the three West African countries where Ebola killed 11,000 people in 2014.