Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum

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Lore & Background

Muyembe grew up in Bandundu Province, the child of farmers, and was educated in schools run by the Catholic Jesuit order. He studied medicine starting in 1962 at Lovanium University in Léopoldville (now Kinshasa), graduating in 1969, and earned a PhD in virology at the University of Leuven in Belgium, working on viral infections with mouse models. He returned to Zaire in 1973 and worked on cholera outbreak control; his first crisis was a 1974 cholera outbreak in Matadi. In 1976, he first encountered the Ebola virus at a Belgian hospital in Yambuku, taking liver biopsies from three nuns who had died, though results were inconclusive. He was the first scientist to come into contact with the virus and survive. He took the blood of a sick nurse, which was sent for analysis to the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, then to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, where Peter Piot used the sample to discover Ebola. That version of events regarding his role in the 1976 outbreak was later refuted in a 2016 scientific article he co-signed with some of the remaining actors of that first epidemic. He was appointed dean of the University of Kinshasa Medical School in 1978. In 1981, he joined the Institut Pasteur de Dakar in Senegal, working with the CDC to study Ebola and Marburg viruses. In 1998, he was made director of the DRC National Institute for Biomedical Research. He has acted as an adviser to the WHO Emergency Committee on Ebola. He recognized the sociocultural challenges of Ebola, encouraging hospitals to improve infection control and community engagement. He worked with David L. Heymann on the 1995 Ebola outbreak, called by the director of Kikwit General Hospital for help with an outbreak of deadly diarrhea; upon arrival, he recognized it as Ebola and sent samples to the CDC for confirmation. In 2009, he demonstrated that Ebola outbreaks in the DRC were due to fruit bat exposure. He developed an anti-Ebola serum therapy using antibodies from convalescent patients, first tried during the 1976 outbreak and subsequently recommended by the International Commission set up by the DRC government. In 2016, he led the research that designed mAb114, one of the most promising Ebola treatments, with other researchers at the INRB and the NIH Vaccine Research Center in the US. The treatment was successfully tested during recent DRC outbreaks on the express decision of then Minister of Health Dr Oly Ilunga, despite WHO advice against it.

Reader's Guide

Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum's significance lies in his central role in both the discovery of the Ebola virus and the development of a treatment for it. He was among the first scientists to encounter the virus in 1976 and survive, and his collection of samples led to the identification of Ebola as a new disease, though his exact role in that discovery was later disputed in a co-signed 2016 article. Decades later, he led the research that produced mAb114, a monoclonal antibody treatment approved by the FDA as Ebanga in December 2020. His work has spanned field epidemiology, laboratory research, and public health leadership, including advising the WHO and pioneering the use of experimental Ebola vaccines during outbreaks. He has also established multiple research facilities in the DRC, including a polio and influenza lab, and partnered with the Japan International Cooperation Agency to build a research complex with several biosafety labs. As of 2018, the DRC did not have any labs to test for Ebola. He is a globally known leader in the fight against Ebola and a key figure in WHO efforts to combat infectious diseases. On April 3, 2020, during a press conference in Kinshasa, he advocated for the trial in DRC of experimental vaccines against COVID-19, generating serious backlash from the Congolese population; he eventually backtracked, saying there had been a misunderstanding.

Did You Know?

• Muyembe was the first scientist to come into contact with the Ebola virus and survive.
• He took blood from a sick nurse in 1976, which was sent to the CDC where Peter Piot used it to discover Ebola.
• In 2009, he demonstrated that Ebola outbreaks in the DRC were due to fruit bat exposure.
• The mAb114 treatment he helped develop was approved by the FDA under the name Ebanga in December 2020.
• On April 3, 2020, he advocated for COVID-19 vaccine trials in the DRC, then backtracked after public backlash.