Two French savants and a German scientist are this year's Nobel Prize for Medicine awardees.

Frenchmen Luc Montagnier, the director of the World Foundation for AIDS Research and Prevention, and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, from the Institut Pasteur were recognized Monday for their discovery of the fatal Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome virus, which had killed million of people. For their valuable scientific contribution, the two were awarded half of the $1.39 billion (800,000 pound) prize money

- A new study suggests that the AIDS virus has been around for 100 years.

Researchers published their findings in the journal Nature. They have found through genetic analysis that the virus likely originated in humans sometime between 1884 and 1924, with a more focused estimate at 1908

The discovery of a 50-year-old human tissue sample in an African university shows that HIV/AIDS pandemic in humans originated at least three decades earlier than previously thought.

Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, Tucson, and lead author of the study suggests that AIDS may have been triggered by rapid urbanization in west-central Africa during the early 20th century and the virus most likely started circulating among humans in sub-Saharan Africa sometime between 1884 and 1924

In a bid to eradicate malaria deaths globally by 2015, world leaders including the World Bank and the Gates Foundation on Wednesday pledged $3 billion to help eradicate the disease that kills approximately 1 million people a year.

The funding will support a new Global Malaria Action Plan to wipe out the disease in Africa by 2015. The plan will emphasize the introduction of a vaccine against the deadly disease, and provide better access to bed nets, indoor spraying, improved diagnosis and treatment and preventative measures for pregnant women

An experimental new breast cancer vaccine has completely eliminated a type of breast cancer tumour in tests on mice, say researchers.

The vaccine targets breast cancers that grow wildly in response to a growth factor called HER-2, which is prevalent in about 25 percent of women with breast cancer