NIH Doctor Peter Kilmarx: Text Message from Congo

Peter Kilmarx was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Bakwa Tombe, Kasai Occidental, from 1984-1986, helping farmers build fish farms. His experiences there led him to a life in medicine and several return visits to the DRC to help with HIV and Ebola. Today he is a highly regarded global health expert and deputy director of the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health.

In this first-person piece in the Journal of the American Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene, Kilmarx writes about a lifelong passion for public health born in his Peace Corps village and how one text message from the ceremonial chief of his village brought him back to Congo yet again.

Chief Shamba Gilbert, traditional chief of Bakwa Tombe, Mweka zone, Kasai Occidental, the Democratic Republic of the Congo.