Yap Boum

Professor Yap Boum II is the regional representative for Epicenter Africa, the research arm of Médecins sans Frontières (MSF), known also as Doctors Without Borders. He is currently based in Yaoundé, Cameroon. From 2009 to 2014, Boum headed the Epicenter’s research base in Mbarara, Uganda, leading research projects that included tuberculosis and malaria. Most recently, in Democratic Republic of Congo, he was involved in the Ebola outbreak and the use of the Ebola vaccine for MSF/Epicenter of the Ebola.

Boum has a Professorship in Microbiology at Mbarara University of Sciences and Technology in Uganda and teaches public health and microbiology at the Universities of Yaoundé I, Douala in Cameroon, and in Virginia in the US.

Boum is a co-founder of Kmerpad, a nonprofit that developed washable sanitary pads to empower women and allow them to more fully participate in their education. Kmerpad also aims to have a critical impact on the huge amount of waste generated by the use of non-reusable sanitary pads. In all his work, Boum is inspired by the vision of a healthy and wealthy Africa. As an ArchBishop Tutu Fellow he aims to advance research and innovative solutions and to promote the creation of a critical mass of young Africans to address the social and public health challenges Africa faces.