DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Fighting Malaria, Part 1

DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Fighting Malaria¹, Part 1
By Karen Leggett

Broadcast: Monday, July 26, 2004

This is Robert Cohen with the VOA Special English Development Report.

There was a lot of talk at the International AIDS Conference in Bangkok about the Global Fund that finds money to fight AIDS. But that is not all it does. The full name is the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis² and Malaria. This organization was created in two-thousand-one to find more money to attack all three of these deadly diseases.

The Global Fund has offices in Geneva. But it does not have its own programs. It gives money to finance³ local efforts. Member countries of the Global Fund have agreed to spend more than five thousand million dollars through two-thousand-eight.

 
Child sick with malaria
Because of this support, there is now two times as much money to fight malaria as there was two years ago. Malaria kills more than one million people each year. Almost half of all people in the world live in countries where malaria is found. But ninety percent of the deaths are in Africa, mostly in children under five years old.

Pregnant⁴ women are also at high risk. So are refugees⁵. They often have little or no protection against the mosquitoes that spread malaria. Aid officials worry about the situation for the refugees from the Darfur area in western Sudan. Seasonal⁶ rains have begun. That will mean more mosquitoes. These insects lay their eggs in water.

Many countries, though, have success stories to tell about their efforts to fight malaria. These include Malawi, Sri Lanka, Tanzania, Vietnam and Zambia.

Progress often comes with the use of new medicines called artemisinin-based combination therapy, or ACT. Older medicines like chloroquine no longer cure many people with malaria. These medicines have been used for such a long time that the malaria parasite⁷ resists them.

ACT mixes several medicines. Health officials say it is now the best way to fight malaria. But ACT costs about two dollars per treatment. That is a lot of money compared to the older medicines, which cost about ten cents.

Last week, the United States Institute of Medicine called for a program to help pay for these new medicines. The proposed fund would seek as much as five hundred million dollars per year. This would come from rich countries and international aid organizations.

Next week, learn what some countries are doing to fight malaria. This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Karen Leggett. This is Robert Cohen.

1 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

2 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

3 finance   

n.财务管理，财政，金融，财源，资金

参考例句：

• She is an expert in finance.她是一名财政专家。
• A finance house made a bid to buy up the entire company.一家信贷公司出价买下了整个公司。

4 pregnant   

adj.怀孕的，怀胎的

参考例句：

• She is a pregnant woman.她是一名孕妇。
• She is pregnant with her first child.她怀了第一胎。

5 refugees   

n.避难者，难民( refugee的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The UN has begun making airdrops of food to refugees. 联合国已开始向难民空投食物。
• They claimed they were political refugees and not economic migrants. 他们宣称自己是政治难民，不是经济移民。

6 seasonal   

adj.季节的，季节性的

参考例句：

• The town relies on the seasonal tourist industry for jobs.这个城镇依靠季节性旅游业提供就业机会。
• The hors d'oeuvre is seasonal vegetables.餐前小吃是应时蔬菜。

7 parasite   

n.寄生虫；寄生菌；食客

参考例句：

• The lazy man was a parasite on his family.那懒汉是家里的寄生虫。
• I don't want to be a parasite.I must earn my own way in life.我不想做寄生虫，我要自己养活自己。