First to raise the alarm on a new Mpox epidemic in 2023, virologist Placide Mbala was one of Nature’s ‘10 People Who Helped Shape Science’ in 2024
Placide Mbala’s involvement with the Mpox virus (formerly known as Monkeypox) began more than 15 years ago. In 2006, freshly graduated from the faculty of medicine in Kinshasa (Democratic Republic of the Congo DRC), this young doctor was already attracted to the field of research. He knocked on the door of Professor Jean-Jacques Muyembe, an eminent Congolese virologist and co-discoverer of the Ebola virus in 1976. Their encounter was to be decisive.
Pr. Muyembe asked Placide to contribute to a research programme on the clinical characterisation of the Mpox virus, in Kole, located in the centre of the country. For four years, Placide Mbala monitored Mpox patients on a daily basis to gain clearer insight into the natural development of this still little-understood disease at the origin of regular epidemic outbreaks in Central and West Africa, and whose symptoms resemble that of smallpox, a virus officially eradicated since 1980. Without appropriate treatment, Mpox can reach a mortality rate of 10%, and slightly higher in children under 5.
Field experience
This period in the field represented the most memorable years of his career. “I was fully immersed in the world of research, in a very isolated area without running water or electricity”, Pr. Mbala recalls. Day after day, he counted and characterized his patients’ skin lesions and recorded any changes in their symptoms, a laborious task which only served to strengthen his determination.
In 2016, after obtaining a master’s in public health science at the Institute of Tropical Medicine in Antwerp, Belgium, he launched into a thesis at Montpellier University, with the TransVIHMI research unit, co-run by IRD, Montpellier University and INSERM. He left Mpox aside temporarily to focus on the Ebola virus. “Following the massive Ebola outbreak in West Africa in 2014, all research funding was directed towards this disease”, Pr. Mbala explains.
Animal reservoir of Ebola
He devoted his efforts specifically to the animal reservoir of the Ebola virus. “Understanding the animal reservoirs of viruses is key to better anticipating and controlling epidemics”, the researcher explains. The animal reservoir of Ebola remains a mystery, unfortunately. Less than 1% of the bats and none of the monkeys tested during his thesis presented Ebola antibodies, which would have indicated contact with the virus.
Having obtained his PhD, Placide Mbala pursued his work on Ebola. He was made head of the Epidemiology and Global Health Department of the National Biomedical Research Institute in Kinshasa. His team contributed notably to the discovery of two effective drug treatments for Ebola (REGN-EB3 and mAb114), approved by the US Food & Drug Administration in 2020.
The COVID-19 pandemics
That year was also marked by the COVID-19 pandemic, which dominated the researcher’s work. In particular, he studied the movement of COVID-19 variants in the DRC. The Afroscreen project, initiated in July 2021 by IRD, the Pasteur Institute and ANRS (French National Research Agency) to boost virus sequencing abilities in Africa, provided substantial support. “This project later enabled us to characterise the Mpox virus in the DRC”, Placide Mbala says.
Mpox returned with a vengeance as of 2022, leading to a worldwide epidemic. “Previously limited to Africa, the fight against Mpox is now becoming an international concern”, Pr. Mbala points out. As the epidemic waned in late 2022, his team were intrigued by the emergence of new, atypical cases of Mpox in the DRC. They appeared to affect an older population of teenagers and adults rather than children, and presented more localised lesions, particularly in the genital area.
Mpox with a different guise
Genomic analyses revealed that it was not the clade 2b strain at the origin of the 2022 world epidemic, but clade 1b, a sub-variant which circulated traditionally in Africa. The researcher immediately raised the alarm among the international scientific community and public authorities. He was right in doing so: this clade 1b strain spread rapidly throughout the world, causing a second global Mpox epidemic in 2024.
Pr. Mbala is currently seeking clearer insight into this new variant, and more specifically how it is transmitted between humans, including via sexual contact. More than 15 years after his first steps in the world of research, he remains fully committed to fighting the Mpox virus.
Clémentine Vignon
This article has first been published by IRD.
