PARIS - Two French researchers who shared the Nobel Prize in medicine for discovering the AIDS virus are voicing fears that the world financial crisis will hurt funding to fight the disease.

Luc Montagnier and Francoise Barre-Sinoussi say they told President Nicolas Sarkozy of their concerns that both research and international funding to fight AIDS could be cut in the crisis.

The two met with Sarkozy Wednesday. They told him that medication in Africa is often paid by a global fund for AIDS and distributed for free. Montagnier questioned whether that arrangement will continue.

Barre-Sinoussi and Montagnier discovered HIV in 1983.

They shared the award with Germany's Harald zur Hausen, who discovered viruses causing cervical cancer.

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