Jean-Jacques Muyembe, stemming the tide of Ebola

Co-discoverer of the Ebola virus and director of the pioneering Institut national de recherche biomédicale in Kinshasa, this Congolese virologist has devoted his life to the fight against epidemics. Following his discovery, his work led to the development of the very first treatment for the Ebola Zaire virus.

" Jean-Jacques Muyembe's work is first and foremost a long-term project at a time when no one was dealing with this virus, which was initially only responsible for limited epidemics in the rainforest ," says Eric Delaporte, Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University Hospital and University of Montpellier, and Director of TransVIHMI. For more than 20 years now, this international joint research unit attached to the UM, IRD and Inserm has been collaborating with the National Institute for Biomedical Research in Kinshasa, headed by Professor Muyembe.

On this December 9th, it's not on African soil that the two scientists shake hands, but under the mouldings of Montpellier's Faculty of Medicine, where Philippe Augé, President of the University, has come to award Jean-Jacques Muyembe the title of Doctor Honoris Causa. On the benches of the anatomy amphitheatre where the ceremony was taking place, a small crowd was already gathering to hear the traditional lecture given by the recipient. Today's topic: "From the discovery of the Ebola virus to its control".

Discovery of a new virus

It's hard to smile, and even harder to laugh, when talking about a disease as deadly as Ebola. Yet it's not without a sense of humor, and with a simplicity that could be described as out of the ordinary given the man's imposing career, that the Congolese professor retraces the sinister saga of this virus he co-discovered over 40 years ago. The story begins in September 1976 in a country then still known as Zaire. Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who graduated from theUniversity of Lovanium (DRC) in '69 and from theUniversity of Louvain in '73, was sent on a mission to the small village of Yambuku to investigate a mysterious illness affecting the villagers. Even the Belgian nuns at the Catholic mission hospital were victims," says the doctor. Neither anti-malarial drugs nor antibiotics had any effect on these patients, most of whom died ".

While the authorities suspected thyroid fever, the doctor took blood samples from patients. " Fortunately, I had the reflex to wash my hands immediately with soap, otherwise I wouldn't be with you today. When three nurses and two nuns evacuated to Kinshasa also died, Jean-Jacques Muyembe decided to send his samples to theInstitute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp. There, Professor Peter Piot confirmed the appearance of a new virus. It was to be named Ebola, after the river flowing near the village where it first appeared.

Initial control measures

In 1976, the two strains of the virus - Ebola Zaire and Ebola Sudan, which broke out in June in the country whose name it bears - claimed 318 victims, 280 of whom died, giving a case-fatality rate of 88%. While the first Ebola epidemics are dying out, AIDS is on the rise in Africa. To counter this new scourge and work on emerging diseases, Jean-Jacques Muyembe, who is also Professor of Microbiology at the University of Kinshasa's Faculty of Medicine, dreamed of a research establishment modelled on the Institut Pasteur. This became a reality in 1984 with the creation of the Institut National de Recherche Biomédicale de la République Démocratique du Congo, inaugurated at the time by François Mitterrand and DRC Prime Minister Leon Kengo. " The Congolese have succeeded in developing this center into a real reference. Today, there are more centers on this scale in Africa, but INRB was a forerunner as an autonomous national center of international standing," recalls Eric Delaporte, who was also working on HIV at the time, but in Gabon.

After 19 years of silence, Ebola reappeared in April 95 in Kikwit, a town of 400,000 inhabitants 500 km south of Kinshasa. Jean-Jacques Muyembe was appointed national coordinator of the response to the epidemic. He drew up a more precise virological portrait of Ebola and highlighted the epidemiological aspects of the disease, notably the amplifying role of hospitals and funeral rites. He pioneered measures to control the epidemic, such as the " Ebola handshake ", which would inspire Western public health policies 25 years later during the Sars-Cov-2 epidemic. He also attempts the first serotherapy, treating 8 patients with the blood of Ebola survivors: 7 survive. The epidemic dies out after affecting 317 people, 250 of them fatally.

On the trail of AIDS

At the end of the 90s, Jean-Jacques Muyembe took over as director of INRB and continued the drive to give it international stature. For their part, Eric Delaporte and Martine Peeters, virologist at TransVIHMI, continue their investigative work in Africa to trace the origins of HIV and the epidemic. " Jean-Jacques was also working on HIV and wanted to develop collaborations. That's how we began to train students together, including Steve Ahuka-Mundeke, now head of the virology unit at INRB, and Placide Mbala, head of the molecular biology unit," continues the French infectiologist.

TransVIHMI and INRB will be carrying out numerous collaborative projects on the genetic diversity of HIV in Kinshasa, authenticating the capital of Congo as the starting point of the global AIDS epidemic. They will also be working on the diversity of simian retroviruses in order to identify new viruses, and on monitoring the emergence of resistance to the antiretrovirals used to treat HIV. The two teams continue to work hand in hand on a number of projects, including ARIACOV, aimed at tracking the dynamics of Sars Cov-2 infection in Africa.

The return of Ebola

Between 2000 and 2020, numerous outbreaks of Ebola continued to appear on the African continent. While most of these were rapidly brought under control, the first major epidemic began in Guinea in 2013 and rapidly spread to other West African states. A few isolated cases were even reported in Europe and the United States. The two-year epidemic claimed between 15,000 and 20,000 lives. Transfusion of the blood of survivors, which had been successfully tested in 95, failed to show any significant efficacy during this epidemic. Nevertheless, Professor Muyembe did not abandon this avenue and, with the support of an American team, continued his research into monoclonal antibodies using the blood of a survivor.

In 2018, two new Ebola epidemics broke out in the DRC. Despite the civil war, which significantly worsened the situation, the research carried out led to better management of the epidemic: " The molecule developed by Jean-Jacques Muyembe and christened Ebanga made it possible to validate an initial curative treatment for Ebola Zaire. At the same time, he also contributed to the development and evaluation of a vaccine, which is now in operational use," explains Eric Delaporte. The collaboration with TransVIHMI also led to the identification of the viral strain responsible for the epidemic, enabling better diagnosis and monitoring of the epidemic through contact tracing using new molecular biology techniques.

International recognition

Jean-Jacques Muyembe is a leading figure in his country, both scientifically and politically, thanks to his role in public health management, and today enjoys an international reputation. Winner of France's Prix Mérieux from the Institut de France, winner of the prestigious Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize, which was awarded to him in Tokyo in 2019, honorary doctorate from Harvard... Nature magazine, for its part, ranked him among the ten scientists who mattered most in 2018-2019. " At the time of the covid, he was considered by Time magazine to be one of its 100 most Despite all this, he has always remained remarkably straightforward. He's someone who refuses to take himself too seriously, and who handles the second degree with great finesse," continues Eric Delaporte.

Following in the footsteps of pediatrician Chipepo Kankasa (Zambia), media specialist Tawana Kupe (South Africa) and Nobel Peace Prize-winning gynecologist Denis Mukwege (DRC), the University of Montpellier, through its honorary doctors, is reaffirming its determination to pursue and develop its close collaboration with African research excellence, and to support it with all available means. To this end, the Prisme RDC agreement for "an international research platform in global health in the Democratic Republic of Congo" was signed at the end of the ceremony, in the presence of Jean-Jacques Muyembe, Director of INRB, Body Ilonga, Secretary General of the Ministry of Public Health of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Yazdan Yazdanpanah, Director of ANRS - Emerging Infectious Diseases, Yves Martin-Prével, Director of the IRD Health Department and Philippe Augé, President of the University of Montpellier.