Chinese Nobel laureate Tu Youyou calls for joint efforts to combat malaria

"Joint efforts are urgently needed to combat malaria", China's Tu Youyou who won 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine said here on Sunday.

Tu, sitting together with the other two laureates William C. Campbell and Satoshi Omura, made such an appeal during Sunday's press conference for the Medicine Laureates at the Nobel Forum, Karolinska Institutet.

"Malaria is a pandemic that can go easily out of control, especially in low income regions such as Africa. So all parties should, under the framework of the WHO(World Health Organization), try their best to delay the process of artemisinin resistance. "

"It's hard to develop a new drug in the next decade, during which it would be too late, if malaria became widespread."She said, adding that she was "deeply worried about this possible outcome".

Talking about the Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM) where she found the source and inspiration in successfully developing anti-malaria drug, she emphasized on the value of TCM with "thousands of years' history and empirical knowledge" as "great treasure", and said "combining with modern scientific technologies, more potential can be discovered in searching for new drugs".

Tu won 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in early October for her discoveries concerning a novel therapy against Malaria, artemisinin.

Tu is scheduled to receive her award at the Nobel Prize Award Ceremony on Thursday, and later attend the Nobel Banquet and Royal Banquet.