STOCKHOLM: French and German scientists credited with the discovery of the viruses behind AIDS and cervical cancer won the Nobel Medicine Prize on Monday, the first of the prestigious awards to be announced this year.

France's Francoise Barre-Sinoussi and Luc Montagnier, who shared one half of the award, discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes AIDS, one of the biggest scourges of modern times.

Modern scourge

Harald zur Hausen of Germany won the other half of the award for going against the then-current dogma and claiming that a virus, the human papilloma virus (HPV), causes cervical cancer, the second most common cancer among women.

The French pair's discovery of HIV was "one prerequisite for the current understanding of the biology of the disease and its anti-retroviral treatment," the Nobel citation said.

Their work "led to development of methods to diagnose infected patients and to screen blood products, which has limited the spread of the pandemic," it said.

Montagnier dedicated his award to AIDS sufferers and predicted results on a "therapeutic vaccine" for the pandemic within four years.

"I think my first reaction is to think of all the people sick with AIDS and all those who are still alive and fighting against the illness," Montagnier said.

New therapy

He said a treatment could be possible in the future with a "therapeutic" rather than preventive vaccine for which results could be published in three or four years if the researcher can secure financial backing.

AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) first came to public notice in 1981, when US doctors noted an unusual cluster of deaths among young homosexuals in California and New York.

It has since killed at least 25 million people, and 33 million others are living with the disease or harbouring HIV.