Kikwit

Socklo's passion began in his village in Kikwit, southwestern Congo, in 1975, when he dismantled and copied a guitar a friend had given him.

Heymann says when he accompanied Muyembe to the 1995 outbreak in Kikwit, the first in a city, his first visit was not to the hospital but to the district commissioner, whom he asked to call together all the local chiefs.

Scientists knew little about the virus until 1995, when an outbreak in Kikwit, DRC, killed 245 people in six months.

In 2006, Muyembe sent two Kikwit survivors to NIAID, where researchers — including Mulangu — isolated and studied the volunteers’ antibodies.

A poster featuring portraits of four nuns who died in Kikwit hangs on one wall.