Meet professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, DR Congo scientific icon

FRANCE 24 English

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00:00 Michel Muvudi flicks through the precious collection in his library.

00:04 There is one book that he is particularly proud of, the one that he wrote.

00:08 "Jean-Jacques Muyembe, an inspirational person. This is a 136-page book."

00:12 It's a biography of Jean-Jacques Muyembe, a famous virologist in the Democratic Republic of Congo,

00:18 who helped discover the Ebola virus in the 1970s.

00:21 "I told myself this would be a good opportunity to highlight a role model,

00:26 someone who could serve as an example to young people

00:28 to show that you can succeed through effort and sacrifice in this country."

00:32 The two men met at this research institute in Kinshasa.

00:37 Professor Muyembe has been running his lab here for 25 years,

00:41 and it's become something of a second home.

00:43 Highly respected by his peers,

00:48 the professor has been called upon to coordinate the response to several epidemics,

00:52 including Ebola and then Covid-19.

00:55 He is now also leading the charge against the spread of the monkeypox virus.

00:58 But the 81-year-old says that his most important battle

01:02 is now to train the next generation of scientists.

01:04 "I am no longer alone.

01:07 There are 30 of us now,

01:09 specialized in a variety of diseases like sleeping sickness or malaria.

01:14 To have a place like this in a country like this one, it's quite something."

01:22 The institute has state-of-the-art equipment,

01:24 and expert staff who are proud of the work that they do alongside the professor.

01:28 "He has enabled us to have many partnerships and to train in new techniques.

01:36 If we hadn't developed like this,

01:37 we would be behind and we wouldn't be at the level we are at now."

01:40 Their rigorous efforts have already paid off,

01:46 and have led to the rise of Congolese scientific expertise in tropical diseases.

01:50 Crucial knowledge that boosts the country's ability to respond to more public health emergencies.

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