VOA常速英语2007年-Former UN AIDS Envoy Says Numbers Down But Figh

By Tendai Maphosa
London
23 November 2007

A former United Nations Special Envoy¹ for AIDS in Africa, Stephen Lewis warns that revised UNAIDS HIV statistics should not be seen as a signal that the fight against the pandemic can be relaxed. He says that while the actual figures could be even lower than those published earlier this month, it is only a statistical² adjustment and more needs to be done to combat the disease. From London, Tendai Maphosa has more.

In its latest report, UNAIDS cut the number of infections worldwide to about 33 million, down from its estimated 39.5 million in 2006. Sub-Saharan Africa remains³ the hardest hit by the virus.

Addressing health editors in London Friday, Stephen Lewis said the new numbers are much closer to the truth and could still be too high. Lewis said that for years the United Nations ignored expert advice that the figures were too high. He said by focusing now on what he called a dramatic drop in numbers, attention could be diverted from the real issues .

Lewis said action rather than numbers is urgent.

"This is an apocalypse for Africa, 22.5 million people infected, 61 percent of them are women, 68 percent of all the infections in the world, 76 percent of the deaths are deaths in Africa, over eleven million orphans⁴," he said. "This is a continuing nightmare for the southern part of the continent, and therefore we shouldn't have to deal with the business of arithmetic we should be keeping our focus on the human tragedy.

VOA asked Lewis, the United Nations Special Envoy for AIDS in Africa from 2001 to 2006, why he did not speak up during his time at the U.N. Lewis said while he struggled on issues such as the proper response to the needs of women and orphans and on treatment and prevention, dealing⁵ with figures was difficult because he is not an expert on data collection.

"It's very hard for anyone including the envoy to change the collection of data, and I think UNAIDS should have listened more carefully to its critics," said Lewis. "It was pretty obvious to people early on that if you took prevalence rate based on urban ante-natal clinic surveys that it wouldn't give you a good representative read on the country as a whole, certainly it wouldn't give you a read on the rural areas of the country and there were other factors that had to be taken into account so that then when UNAIDS started doing what we call population based random⁶ surveys doing a lot of households around the country they found very different levels of prevalence."

"The levels were always less than they had identified before, so they had to revise all of their figures and of course the revision turned out to be very dramatic. It dropped by seven million in one year, and that kind of statistical adjustment throws people, confuses people and undermines the credibility of the U.N., I think," he added.

Lewis is currently co-director of AIDS Free World, a U.S.-based nongovernmental organization. He says the United Nations has not done all that it can, given its reach, and that the U.N. secretary-general must provide leadership.

1 envoy   

n.使节，使者，代表，公使

参考例句：

• Their envoy showed no sign of responding to our proposals.他们的代表对我方的提议毫无回应的迹象。
• The government has not yet appointed an envoy to the area.政府尚未向这一地区派过外交官。

2 statistical   

adj.统计的，统计学的

参考例句：

• He showed the price fluctuations in a statistical table.他用统计表显示价格的波动。
• They're making detailed statistical analysis.他们正在做具体的统计分析。

3 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。

4 orphans   

孤儿( orphan的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The poor orphans were kept on short commons. 贫苦的孤儿们吃不饱饭。
• Their uncle was declared guardian to the orphans. 这些孤儿的叔父成为他们的监护人。

5 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

6 random   

adj.随机的；任意的；n.偶然的(或随便的)行动

参考例句：

• The list is arranged in a random order.名单排列不分先后。
• On random inspection the meat was found to be bad.经抽查，发现肉变质了。