Ebola virus
Virus del Ébola
- Date
- 1976 · confidence high
- Place
- Yambuku, Mongala, Democratic Republic of the Congo
- Credited to
- Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum, Peter Piot, Karl Johnson and colleagues
- People
- 👤 Jean-Jacques Muyembe-Tamfum1942–👤 Karl Johnson1948–👤 Peter Piot1949–
- Field
- Life & health
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
During an outbreak at the Yambuku mission, samples were taken that allowed a new haemorrhagic filovirus to be isolated, named after a nearby river. It opened the field of research into emerging haemorrhagic fevers.
Muyembe took the first samples, but the isolation was carried out in Antwerp and Atlanta; his role has only been recognised belatedly.
What it led to
- outbreak containment protocols
- the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine (2019)
- the mAb114 monoclonal antibody, developed with Muyembe