DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Gates Foundation Gives $750 Million to

DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Gates Foundation Gives $750 Million to Vaccines² Alliance; $43 Million Goes to Malaria³ Drug Project
By Jill Moss⁴

Broadcast: Monday, February 07, 2005

I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Development Report.

The world's richest man is giving away more of his money to fight diseases in the world's poorest countries. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation recently announced a gift of seven hundred fifty million dollars. The money will go, over ten years, to the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization through its Vaccine¹ Fund.

The gift will support national programs in seventy-two countries to protect children against several diseases.

The Gates Foundation also gave seven hundred fifty million dollars to the Vaccine Fund in nineteen ninety-nine. These are the largest grants the foundation has made yet.

Bill Gates is chairman of Microsoft, which makes the operating system on most personal computers.

Another Gates Foundation gift announced last month will go to malaria research. Nearly forty-three million dollars will help support what is described as the first non-profit drug company in the United States.

The company, OneWorld Health, will work with Professor Jay Keasling at the University of California, Berkeley. He hopes to create a so-called bacteria factory at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to grow artemisinin. This is the medicine that the World Health Organization considers the most promising⁵ new drug to fight malaria.

It is now made from a plant that grows in Asia. But the drug is in short supply. The goal is to grow artemisinin another way, in a laboratory, to provide a low-cost new cure for malaria.

The gift happened to be announced a week before the death of the man considered the father of modern malaria research. William Trager, an American, was ninety-four years old.

William Trager found a way to grow the most deadly form of malaria in a laboratory. Yet, almost thirty years later, scientists are still working on a vaccine to prevent the disease. The W.H.O. says mosquitoes spread malaria to about three million people per year. More than one million of them die. Most who die are young children in Africa.

In Senegal, a two-day music event by African artists is being organized to support the Roll Back Malaria Partnership⁶. That is an international effort to cut the number of malaria cases in the world in half by two thousand ten. The concert is planned for March twelfth and thirteenth in Dakar.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. I'm Gwen Outen.

1 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。

2 vaccines   

疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His team are at the forefront of scientific research into vaccines. 他的小组处于疫苗科研的最前沿。
• The vaccines were kept cool in refrigerators. 疫苗放在冰箱中冷藏。

3 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。

4 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。

5 promising   

adj.有希望的，有前途的

参考例句：

• The results of the experiments are very promising.实验的结果充满了希望。
• We're trying to bring along one or two promising young swimmers.我们正设法培养出一两名有前途的年轻游泳选手。

6 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。