Jean-Jacques Muyembe

Jean-Jacques Muyembe is a Congolese microbiologist. He is the general director of Institut National pour la Recherche Biomedicale of DR Congo. He was part of team at the Yambuku Catholic Mission Hospital that investigated the first Ebola outbreak, and was part of the effort that discovered Ebola as a new disease, although his exact role is still subject to controversy. In 2016, he led the research that designed, along with other researchers at the INRB and the National Institute of Health Vaccine Research Center in the US, one of the most promising treatment for Ebola, mAb114. The treatment was successfully tested during recent outbreaks in the DRC, on the express decision of the then DRC Minister of Health, Dr Oly Ilunga, despite advice against this from the World Health Organization.