Many people both in and outside of the biology department are bursting with questions and sparking conversations about the spread of the Ebola virus. This is why Friday, Oct. 17 Southeastern’s Biology department opened a free lecture by Physician and scientist John W. Whidden for all students about the status of the Ebola virus. 

Whidden is an alumnus of Southeastern with bachelor’s and master’s degrees in biological sciences. He is an expert in incident management, chemical and bio-terrorism risk analysis and cooperative threat reduction.

Whidden started off with emphasis on problem-solving. Panic can be the greatest enemy to any civilization and easily lead to collapse. Technology can be harmful in this way because it can also spread panic quickly. Whidden says people need to instill trust into their local “brain trusts.”  Hammond’s brain trust concerning the Ebola virus crisis is the university’s biology department. Questions to ask people within a brain trust would be, “What do you know?” and “What do you think about it?” Whidden said a big portion of problem solving is preparation, which is something he learned from his experience with the National Biology Intelligence Center, an organization that had to predict world disease threats before they made large impacts. This kind of preparation involves a great amount of careful studying, including knowing about biological status of each country and identifying the disease. 

To do this they would study small populations. He noticed people were running in fear because they lose faith in their health care providers, which is not a beneficial thing for a civilization to do. Conversely, he does not agree with running to a hospital right away if there isn’t an immediate emergency. 

Ebola has been around for several decades and was first identified as hemorrhagic fever, also known as Hunter fever, which killed many archaeologists and had many Ebola-like symptoms. 

He discourages rushing to hospitals from fear of Ebola. He brought up the Anthrax attacks of 2001 which killed five people, one being his neighbor. 

Due to his own preventative learning, he could have saved him, but his neighbor went to the hospital instead. Only five people died and 9.5 million people rushed to Emergency Rooms after Anthrax. 

Whidden explained his own personal hygiene regimen, which has been effective for him as someone who encounters and survives disease outbreaks often. Stick to washing hands before and after using the restroom. Whidden also says to wash one’s face as well, because it could collect a lot of contaminated dust and dirt that can be harmful. 

Lastly, Whidden had a message for the people at the biology department. 

“We as a community have to be charged with providing the truth,” said Whidden, “The CDC is no bigger than the faculty on our campus, and they are also stretched very far and thin in mostly Africa. It’s all dependant on us. Emergency Response is dependant on us to educate people who respond and who are far removed.”

Whidden said everyone must work on interdisciplinary approach to finding solutions.  Whidden wants to create a trust between local brain trusts and people in communities as well as between departments working together for solutions to future problems.

 “We can’t let fear rule us. We need to have a plan,” said Whidden.