Nobel Medicine Prize winner Luc Montagnier on Monday dedicated his award to Aids sufferers and predicted results on a "therapeutic vaccine" for the pandemic within four years.

"I think my first reaction is to think of all the people sick with Aids and all those who are still alive and fighting against the illness," Montagnier told AFP.

"I am always by their side and the researchers should continue their work because there is no cure for Aids yet. We see here in Africa that Aids is still around so the battle continues," he said.

Montagnier (76) said a treatment could be possible in the future with a "therapeutic" rather than preventive vaccine for which results might be published in three or four years if financial backing is forthcoming.

Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, who shared the Nobel prize, discovered the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) that causes Aids by destroying immune cells, one of the scourges of modern times.

Speaking on the sidelines of a conference in Abdijan, said that he is currently working on finding complementary treatments to stop the infection and enable a patient's immune system to keep the disease under control.

"I think it will be possible with a therapeutic vaccine rather than preventative vaccinations. We would give it to people who are already infected," he explained.

According to the French researcher such a treatment could be possible in "three to four years (..) if I have the money".

The Nobel recognition comes 25 years after Montagnier and his team at the French Pasteur Institute, including Barre-Sinoussi, discovered HIV in his Paris laboratory.

"Better late than never. It's good that the Nobel Committee is interested in Aids (...) which is a world-wide scourge," the researcher said of his award.

Aids (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) has claimed more than 25 million lives since it first came to prominence in 1981. Today, around 33 million people are living with Aids or harbouring HIV, 67 percent of them south of the Sahara.

AFP