Nahid Bhadelia to Head New BU Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases
Original article from BU Today , 2021
Will connect policy with research and use lessons from Ebola and COVID to prepare lawmakers and the public for next crisis
The first-floor classroom is empty inside the Boston University School of Medicine on a gray and chilly May morning in the South End. The whiteboard is marked up from earlier instruction and the only sound is the hum of fluorescent lights overhead. With an audience of one, and from behind her blue mask, Nahid Bhadelia slips on one hat after another, pivoting seamlessly from healthcare policy wonk to infectious diseases physician to MED associate professor to expert researcher in highly communicable diseases.
Listening to her, it’s easy to see why Bhadelia is such a sought-after expert voice on the coronavirus pandemic—no question, no subject, is out of her comfort zone.
With so many roles, it’s difficult to imagine Bhadelia finding time for another. But, in fact, she’s poised to take on perhaps her most ambitious professional challenge yet. On June 1, BU will launch the Center for Emerging Infectious Diseases Policy & Research (CEID), with Bhadelia as its founding director. The center’s purpose is to marry technical expertise in emerging infectious diseases—like COVID-19, Zika, and Ebola—with policy research and to provide recommendations to governments, communities, and academic institutions to help them prepare, and respond to, epidemics and pandemics at local, national, and global levels.
It’s precisely the sort of multipronged, multidisciplinary center that was needed, say, back in January 2020, when news about this strange new, fast-spreading, deadly virus emerged from China. The public began asking questions about testing, wearing masks, handwashing, and contaminated surfaces, and public health experts began researching answers.
Bhadelia, who has lost three relatives to the coronavirus, says the new center will be “a place we work to answer the known unknowns when a crisis happens and we build evidence for how we keep ourselves safe and keep the next big one from happening.”
“I think the center would have helped [in early 2020],” she says. “It would have been there to create just-in-time policy for legislators, to say, hey, here is a two-page brief that can help you understand what the science behind the big topics and policy implications are. It would have been a place for the public to go to get evolving scientific information, and a place where multidisciplinary researchers can determine best practices for responding to this crisis from a healthcare perspective.”