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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.