China's Youyou Tu Among Trio to Nobel Medicine Prize

William Campbell, Satoshi Omura and Tu Youyou jointly won the 2015 Nobel Prize for medicine for their work against parasitic diseases, the award-giving body said on Monday. 

Irish-born Campbell and Japanese Omura won half of the prize for discovering a new drug, avermectin, that has helped the battle against river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, as well as showing effectiveness against other parasitic diseases.

The Chinese scientist Tu Youyou was awarded the other half of the prize for discovering artemisinin, a drug that has significantly reduced the mortality rates for patients suffering from malaria.

Despite rapid progress in controlling malaria in the past decade, the mosquito-borne disease still kills more than half a million people a year, the vast majority of them babies and young children in the poorest parts of Africa.

Medicine is the first of the Nobel prizes awarded each year. Prizes for achievements in science, literature and peace were first awarded in 1901 in accordance with the will of dynamite inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has sent a congratulatory letter.

"Tu's winning the prize signifies China's prosperity and progress in scientific and technological field, marks a great contribution of Traditional Chinese Medicine to the cause of human health, and showcases China's growing strengths and rising international standing," Li said.