DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Effort to End Polio by 2005 Continues

DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Effort to End Polio by 2005 Continues
By Jill Moss¹

Broadcast: Monday, January 26, 2004

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.

Ending polio before the end of this year remains² a goal of six countries where the disease is still present. New cases are mostly in Nigeria, India and Pakistan, but also in Afghanistan, Egypt and Niger.

Health ministers of these six nations held an emergency meeting this month with the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland. They presented a new plan to vaccinate³ two-hundred-fifty million children.

The campaign to end polio began in nineteen-eighty-eight. At that time, about three-hundred-fifty-thousand cases were reported each year. New cases were down to fewer than six-hundred-eighty last year. Three-hundred of those people were in Nigeria.

There have been problems with vaccination⁴ campaigns in northern Nigeria. Last year, Muslim clergy⁵ in the state of Kano refused to let children get the vaccine⁶. They said the medicine caused AIDS, cancer and a loss of reproductive ability in females. The W-H-O denied these claims. Nigerian doctors said their own tests showed that the vaccine is safe.

But, because of the situation in the north, polio was able to spread to Benin, Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Burkina Faso and Togo. These countries had been free of the virus.

 
Boy receives OPV medication
Polio spreads quickly through contact with human waste. The virus enters the body through the mouth. Victims, mostly children, can lose the ability to move their arms or legs. Breathing may also be difficult. Some victims die. There is no cure for polio.

Bruce Aylward is an official of the W-H-O campaign to end polio. He says this is the best and possibly the last chance for the world to become polio-free. Money is a problem. Many countries that are free of polio have stopped vaccinating⁷ children.

The campaign to end polio has involved more than two-hundred countries. About two-thousand million children have been vaccinated⁸. International investment in the program has totaled more than three-thousand-million dollars over the past fifteen years.

The W-H-O says an additional one-hundred-fifty-million dollars is urgently needed for the final effort. If the campaign succeeds, polio would become the second disease in history to be ended by a medical campaign. The first was smallpox⁹.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss.

1 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

2 remains   

n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹

参考例句：

• He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
• The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。

3 vaccinate   

vt.给…接种疫苗；种牛痘

参考例句：

• Local health officials then can plan the best times to vaccinate people.这样，当地的卫生官员就可以安排最佳时间给人们接种疫苗。
• Doctors vaccinate us so that we do not catch smallpox.医生给我们打预防针使我们不会得天花。

4 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

5 clergy   

n.[总称]牧师，神职人员

参考例句：

• I could heartily wish that more of our country clergy would follow this example.我衷心希望，我国有更多的牧师效法这个榜样。
• All the local clergy attended the ceremony.当地所有的牧师出席了仪式。

6 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

7 vaccinating   

给…接种疫苗( vaccinate的现在分词 )； 注射疫苗，接种疫苗

参考例句：

• At first blush, vaccinating the wolves against rabies seems a simple solution. 乍一看来，为狼群注射防狂犬病疫苗是一种简单的办法。
• Also vaccinating children against misers (measles) has saved many lives. 还有，给儿童进行疫苗接种防止麻疹也挽救了许多生命。

8 vaccinated   

[医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的

参考例句：

• I was vaccinated against tetanus. 我接种了破伤风疫苗。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child? 你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

9 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？