3 win Nobel medicine prize for discovering hepatitis C virus

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Americans Harvey J. Alter and Charles M. Rice and British-born scientist Michael Houghton have won the 2020 Nobel Prize in medicine for their discovery of the hepatitis C virus. The World Health Organization estimates there are over 70 million cases of hepatitis worldwide and 400,000 deaths each year. The disease is chronic and a major cause of liver inflammation and cancer. The Nobel committee says “thanks to their discovery, highly sensitive blood tests for the vir