Awarded the prestigious Christophe-Mérieux prize in 2022 for his work in the fight against onchocerciasis, Professor Joseph Kamgno is much more than a relentless scientist. He holds many positions of responsibility in the health, higher education and research sectors in his country1 and on the African continent.
But he is also, and above all, the leader and driving force behind a rapidly developing Cameroonian scientific community – young, enthusiastic and determined to wipe out parasitic diseases in Central Africa.
A goal by Cameroonian footballer Roger Milla during the 1982 World Cup was all it took for Joseph Kamgno to become a geometrician and topographer… But the infectious enthusiasm of the villagers, who were following the Cameroon-Italy match on their transistors, caused all the candidates to drop out of the entrance exam for the technical college for which he was destined. So much for topography, Joseph Kamgno went to the classical high school in Bafoussam, the capital of his native province, and took a general science course. In my final year,” he recalls, “I was awarded the first prize for natural science, a small book entitled “Recherche médicale, carrière d’avenir”, which made a huge impression on me. It echoed my childhood in the village, where the omnipresent disease struck all families indiscriminately. My father himself had died a year earlier” His decision was made: he would fight the diseases that plague rural populations, particularly the poorest.
His first attempt at the medical entrance examination was unsuccessful. The competition was tough,” he admits. At the time, only 75 out of 5,000 or 6,000 candidates were selected! He waited a year at the Faculty of Science before passing the next session. This was followed by a traditional course at the Centre Universitaire des Sciences de la Santé – now the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Yaoundé I. In his fifth year, the director asked him to lend a hand to a French research team that needed two students for fieldwork. The programme focused on blindness and its causes in forest areas.
“It was the start of a long partnership with scientists from the IRD and the Institut Pasteur”, he recalls. As part of his medical thesis, and with one of his fellow students, he went out into the field to carry out visual acuity tests and palpate patients in search of nodules characteristic of onchocerciasis.
He is Professor and Head of the Department of Public Health at the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at the University of Yaoundé I, Director of the Centre for Research into Filariasis and Other Tropical Diseases (CRFIlMT) and a member of the Cameroon Academy of Sciences and the African Academy of Sciences, medical specialist in public health at the IRD, parasitologist at the IRD, in other homes where ivermectin treatments are administered, during a clinical trial directed by Michel Boussinesq, as part of a programme of assistance to the Cameroon Ministry of Public Health.
Editorial
