2006年VOA标准英语-Uganda Fights Drug Resistance in Malaria,

By Carolyn Weaver¹
Kampala, Uganda
03 May 2006
 
watch Drug Resistance report

Anti-microbial resistance -- germs becoming resistant² to medicine -- is part of the natural history of infectious disease. No drug can kill every single harmful microbe. A few bugs⁴ inside a sick person always survive. Over time, these resistant microbes may come to predominate, rendering⁵ formerly⁶ effective medicines useless.  In Uganda, as in other African countries, the fight against disease is a race against drug resistance.

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Sister Florence Nawanga grows artemesia near Entebbe  
  

Sister Florence Nawanga is an herbalist at a convent near Entebbe in south-central Uganda.  For the last few years, she's been cultivating an herb that's native to China, but that might hold the key to defeating malaria⁷ in Africa, too. “This is the plant,” she says, pointing to a small fern-like plant she’s seeded in the bush near the convent.

It's called "sweet wormwood," or Artemesia annua, and the drug derived⁸ from it, artemisinin, is the key ingredient of what is currently the most effective anti-malarial⁹ medicine.  It came into use just as older anti-malarials such as chloroquine and quinine began to fail. 

 
Few Ugandans can afford insecticide-treated mosquito nets for their children 
  
Malaria caused by a mosquito-borne parasite¹⁰, kills more than one million Africans each year, most of them young children. Almost everyone in Uganda has had it at one time or another, especially those who can't afford an insecticide-treated mosquito net, a category that includes most Ugandans.

In the Kampala slum of Katanga, a grandmother cares for 11 children without a single mosquito net, administering the older, less effective anti-malaria drugs to the baby. Last week, she says, the medicine failed to save the youngest child in her care. 

Children in Kampala’s Katanga slum  
  
Malaria, AIDS/HIV, tuberculosis¹¹ and poverty reinforce each other in Africa, making each more deadly. Doctors say that malarial fevers in an HIV-infected person are likely to bring on full-blown AIDS, and that most African AIDS patients actually succumb¹² to tuberculosis. The AIDS virus, too, is becoming resistant to less costly¹³, first-line anti-retroviral drugs. And doctors note that in all three illnesses, poor people are less likely to complete drug therapies, a major cause of drug resistance. 

 
Dr. Martin Okot-Nwang, head of TB treatment at Kampala’s Mulago Hospital
  
“Because the patient is interrupted in taking the drugs, the bug³ recovers,” says Dr. Martin Okot-Nwang, who is the head of tuberculosis treatment at Mulago Hospital in Kampala. “And when it recovers, it's definitely not going to be the same bug."

Dr. Okot-Nwang says perhaps the most important way to prevent an even deadlier variant¹⁴ -- multiple-drug-resistant, or MDR tuberculosis -- is using community-based volunteers to make sure that patients complete their drug regimen even after they feel better. “This means someone in the neighborhood who is trained locally to give the patient TB drugs,” he explains, “and who records on the TB cards as the patient swallows the drugs.”

 
A resident social worker in Katanga distributes anti-malarials
  
Community-based workers are also being used to fight malaria. Richard is a social worker who distributes free anti-malaria drugs from Mulago Hospital to his fellow slumdwellers. He shows a reporter the green and red Homapaks, as they’re called: green ones for children from two years to five years, and red for babies aged¹⁵ two months to two years. The packs contain the first-line combination treatment of chloroquine and Fansidar (sulfadoxine and pyrimethamine): not as effective now as artemesinin, but far better than nothing.

Ugandan doctors say that increased funding from the rest of the world for combating HIV/AIDS, TB and malaria is making a real difference in Uganda. There is other good news: recently, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley announced they have grown a purer form of artemisinin in the laboratory, using yeast¹⁶ cells. This synthetic¹⁷ form could be the basis for a low-cost combination treatment, lifting the burden of malaria from African peoples and economies. But scientists also warn that if artemisinin is not used correctly as part of a drug-combination cocktail¹⁸, the malaria parasite will quickly become resistant to it as well.

1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

3 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

4 bugs   

adj.疯狂的，发疯的n.窃听器( bug的名词复数 )；病菌；虫子；[计算机]（制作软件程序所产生的意料不到的）错误

参考例句：

• All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不断改进。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里长满了虫子。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 rendering   

n.表现，描写

参考例句：

• She gave a splendid rendering of Beethoven's piano sonata.她精彩地演奏了贝多芬的钢琴奏鸣曲。
• His narrative is a super rendering of dialect speech and idiom.他的叙述是方言和土语最成功的运用。

6 formerly   

adv.从前，以前

参考例句：

• We now enjoy these comforts of which formerly we had only heard.我们现在享受到了过去只是听说过的那些舒适条件。
• This boat was formerly used on the rivers of China.这船从前航行在中国内河里。

7 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。

8 derived   

vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 malarial   

患疟疾的，毒气的

参考例句：

• Malarial poison had sallowed his skin. 疟疾病毒使他皮肤成灰黄色。
• Standing water like this gives malarial mosquitoes the perfect place to breed. 像这样的死水给了传染疟疾的蚊子绝佳的繁殖地点。

10 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。

11 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。

12 succumb   

v.屈服，屈从；死

参考例句：

• They will never succumb to the enemies.他们决不向敌人屈服。
• Will business leaders succumb to these ideas?商业领袖们会被这些观点折服吗？

13 costly   

adj.昂贵的，价值高的，豪华的

参考例句：

• It must be very costly to keep up a house like this.维修这么一幢房子一定很昂贵。
• This dictionary is very useful,only it is a bit costly.这本词典很有用，左不过贵了些。

14 variant   

adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体

参考例句：

• We give professional suggestions according to variant tanning stages for each customer.我们针对每位顾客不同的日晒阶段，提供强度适合的晒黑建议。
• In a variant of this approach,the tests are data- driven.这个方法的一个变种，是数据驱动的测试。

15 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

16 yeast   

n.酵母；酵母片；泡沫；v.发酵；起泡沫

参考例句：

• Yeast can be used in making beer and bread.酵母可用于酿啤酒和发面包。
• The yeast began to work.酵母开始发酵。

17 synthetic   

adj.合成的，人工的；综合的；n.人工制品

参考例句：

• We felt the salesman's synthetic friendliness.我们感觉到那位销售员的虚情假意。
• It's a synthetic diamond.这是人造钻石。

18 cocktail   

n.鸡尾酒；餐前开胃小吃；混合物

参考例句：

• We invited some foreign friends for a cocktail party.我们邀请了一些外国朋友参加鸡尾酒会。
• At a cocktail party in Hollywood,I was introduced to Charlie Chaplin.在好莱坞的一次鸡尾酒会上，人家把我介绍给查理·卓别林。