(VOVworld) - Three scientists from Ireland, Japan, and China have won the Nobel prize in medicine for discoveries that helped fight infections caused by parasites, the Nobel Prize Committee announced Monday.

Nobel medicine winners 2015 : Youyou Tu, Satoshi Ōmura and William C Campbell. Photograph: Corbis/Reuters

Irish-born William Campbell and Japanese Satoshi Omura won the prize for the discovery of Avermectin, a treatment for roundworm parasites that cause river blindness and elephantiasis. Chinese scientist Youyou Tu discovered Artemisinin, a treatment for malaria.

Their drug therapies have revolutionized the treatment of some of the most devastating parasitic diseases, a threat to an estimated one-third of the world’s population.