A tribute to Professor Peter Martins Ndumbe

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I was among the hundreds of people who attended the burial ceremony of Professor Peter Martins Ndumbe on July 6, 2013, in his native Ofrikpabi village in the southwest region of Cameroon. Professor Ndumbe died on May 14 in South Africa after a long illness. He was a fi ne scientist of exceptional rigour and self-discipline, virtues which propelled him to the pinnacle of scientific distinction as a professor of medicine, an infectious disease and public health specialist, and a research microbiologist and virologist. As Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Yaounde I, Dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences of the University of Buea in Cameroon, and most recently as programme manager (research, publications, and library services) at WHO’s Regional Offi ce for Africa in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, Professor Ndumbe has left an enduring legacy of landmark contributions in the fi ght against diseases of poverty in Africa. Peter Ndumbe was a member of several national and international professional and academic societies. He was a member of the Scientific and Technical Advisory Committee of UNICEF, the UN Development Programme, the World Bank, and the WHO Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases. He was a founding member and chair of the Task Force on Immunisation for the African Region since 2004, with the responsibility to seek out new vaccines against tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV. I fi rst met Peter in 1991 through my mentor Professor Jonathan Mann at Harvard University. We then met again during several international gatherings including the meetings of the alumni of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and later in 2004 as a junior colleague during his tenure as Dean of the Faculty of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences of the University of Yaounde I. Needless to say that, as with many of the people he mentored, he was instrumental in my direct appointment as a senior lecturer in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, and later to the rank of professor. Peter was a doctor who genuinely cared for and listened to the needs of vulnerable patients, particularly women and children in Africa. There is no doubt that Africa has lost one of its intellectual giants. Peter is survived by two children, many family members, and hordes of friends in the world of science, medicine, and academia who will mourn him.