Today, October 5, the 2020 Nobel Prize in Physiology and Medicine was awarded. The laureates were Harvey Alter, Michael Houghton and Charles Rice, who discovered the hepatitis C virus. This was reported on the Nobel Committee website.
Yes, the virus discovered by scientists is capable of causing hepatitis C, both in humans and chimpanzees. It was found in 1989 by cloning a DNA copy of a virus that caused a disease in chimpanzees similar to hepatitis A or hepatitis B, but was neither of them.
The works of Alter, Rice and Houghton played an important role in the discovery of this virus. Olter, together with his colleagues from the US National Institutes of Health, investigated cases of hepatitis in patients who underwent blood transfusions. Scientists have proven that, in addition to the already known hepatitis A and hepatitis B, there is another disease similar to them. The disease was called "neither A nor B" hepatitis.
Note that the Nobel Prize is a prestigious international award for outstanding scientific research, revolutionary inventions, or a major contribution to culture or the development of society.
