The New Nation - Internet Edition

Reuters, Stockholm

Two French scientists who discovered the AIDS virus and a German who bucked conventional wisdom to find a cause of cervical cancer were awarded the 2008 Nobel prize for medicine Monday.

Luc Montagnier, director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi of the Institut Pasteur won half the prize of 10 million Swedish crowns (799, 000 pounds) for discovering the virus that has killed 25 million people since it was identified in the 1980s. Harald zur Hausen of the University of Duesseldorf and a former director of the German Cancer Research Centre shared the other half of the prize for work that went against the established opinion about the cause of cervical cancer.

"The three laureates have discovered two new viruses of great importance and the result of that has led to an improved global health," said Jan Andersson, a member of the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's Karolinska Institute.

Montagnier told Reuters in Abidjan, Ivory Coast, where he was holding a lecture, that the award sent a strong message.

"It comes at a time when much progress has been done in research, but not enough because the epidemic is still there," Montagnier said.

"We are in Africa. Many infected people do not have access to medicine."