|
 The discoveries by scientists Harvey Alter, Charles Rice and Briton
Michael Houghton meant there was now a chance of eradicating the
Hepatitis C virus completely, the award-giving body said.
"Prior to their work, the discovery of the Hepatitis A and B viruses
had been critical steps forward," the Nobel Assembly at Sweden's
Karolinska Institute said in a statement on awarding the prize of 10
million Swedish crowns ($1.1 million).
"The discovery of Hepatitis C virus revealed the cause of the
remaining cases of chronic hepatitis and made possible blood tests
and new medicines that have saved millions of lives."
While the Nobel awards will go ahead as planned this year, they have
been overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic.
The Nobel Foundation has cancelled the traditional banquet, which
forms the centre-piece of the celebrations in December, and will
hand out the medals and diplomas in a televised event rather than
live in Stockholm.
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This year's winners will be invited to celebrate alongside the 2021 laureates,
assuming the pandemic has eased by then.
Medicine is the first of the Nobel Prizes awarded each year. The prizes for
achievements in science, peace and literature have been awarded since 1901 and
were created in the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.
($1 = 8.9053 Swedish crowns)
(Reporting by Simon Johnson in Stockhol and Douglas Busvine in Berlin;
additional reporting by Niklas Pollard, Johannes Hellstrom, Supantha Mukherjee
and Anna Ringstrom; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Giles Elgood)
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