A government health worker takes a blood sample to be tested for malaria in Ta Gay Laung village hall in Hpa-An district in Kayin state, south-eastern Myanmar, November 28, 2014. Malaria death rates dropped by 47 percent between 2000 and 2014 worldwide bu
A government health worker takes a blood sample to be tested for malaria in Ta Gay Laung village hall in Hpa-An district in Kayin state, south-eastern Myanmar, November 28, 2014. Malaria death rates dropped by 47 percent between 2000 and 2014 worldwide but it still killed some 584,000 people in 2013, most of them in sub-Saharan Africa, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Much of the success in fighting the disease is due to the use of combination therapies (ACTs) based on artemisinin, a Chinese herb derivative, which is now under threat as malaria parasites have been building up resistance to the drugs. Experts say Myanmar, which has the largest malaria burden in the region, is the next frontier in the spread of resistance to artemisinin. Picture taken November 28, 2014. To match Feature HEALTH-MYANMAR/MALARIA REUTERS/Astrid Zweynert REUTERS/Astrid Zweynert

Three scientists have been awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize for physiology and medicine for their breakthrough discoveries that led to the anti-microbial and anti-parasitic treatment of certain tropical diseases.

The prestigious prize, announced by the Nobel Committee during an event at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm on Monday, recognised the many years of research by 80-year-old Satoshi Omura, 85-year-old Youyou Tu and 85-year-old William C. Campbell in helping study vaccines for deadly diseases of the developing world.

Half of the eight million Swedish Krona will be jointly shared by Campbell and Omura, who collaboratively discovered avermectin or ivermectin, a drug that kills roundworms. The tiny organisms are known to cause deformities, elephantiasis and river blindness in humans.

During their research, Japan-based Omura studied the anti-bacterial properties of the compound produced by Streptomyces, a naturally occurring bacteria present in soil. Meanwhile, Campbell recovered the cultures from Omura and conducted experiments with these on farm animals in New Jersey.

The other half of the prize money will go to Tu, whose research work for the Chinese government led to the discovery of artemisinin, a treatment option for malaria.

During her tenure as head of the Chinese Government's Project 523 in the 1960s, Tu and her colleagues had designed a method to extract a compound from fever-reducing plants found to protect humans against the malarial parasite.

Both ivermectin and artemisinin continue to be widely used across the globe for the treatment and prevention against the deadly parasitic diseases. The Los Angeles Times reports that nearly 400 million doses of artemisinin are administered each year, while 300 million people are given ivermectin around the world annually. Even though malaria is no longer endemic to Australia, between 700 and 800 Australian travelers catch the infection each year when travelling to tropical regions such as Asia and Africa.

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