VOA标准英语2009年-World AIDS Day Finds Improvement in AI

Advances in HIV/AIDS research unprecedented¹, but vaccine² remains³ elusive⁴.

Art Chimes | Washington, D.C. 01 December 2009

We need to move out of the emergency mode, the hand-to-mouth approach to AIDS, which has characterized the last decade. Robert Hecht

Today, December 1, is the annual observance of World AIDS Day. The epidemic⁵ continues to take an enormous toll⁶, even as scientists have developed a range of medicines that have turned an AIDS diagnosis⁷ from a likely death sentence to a manageable condition ... at least for those who can get the right treatment.

The editor of the health policy journal Health Affairs, Susan Denzler, said HIV/AIDS remains a huge, global concern.

"More than four million people, as we know, worldwide are now alive and more-or-less well because they are on anti-retroviral drug therapy," said Dentzler. "An estimated seven million more worldwide probably should be. And then, of course, as we know, another 2.7 million people become infected with the virus every year."

Health Affairs examines the battle against AIDS in its current issue.

In an article on financing the fight against AIDS, Robert Hecht said current funding mechanisms⁸ aren't working very well. Hecht is managing director of the Results for Development Institute, a Washington non-profit that studies economics and health policy, among other issues.

"We need to move out of the emergency mode, the hand-to-mouth approach to AIDS, which has characterized the last decade, and take a long-run view of AIDS financing and of the epidemic in general if we're going to do the right things now - today, tomorrow, over the next few years - to change the course of AIDS," Hecht said.

Without a more strategic approach, Hecht says, there may be some progress against AIDS, but not a decisive victory.

Even without that decisive victory, AIDS researcher Dr. Anthony Fauci says researchers have posted some very significant gains.

"The advances in HIV/AIDS research from the very beginning, from 1981 to 2009, is something that is really unprecedented, said Fauci. "It's unprecedented likely because it was a new situation with enormous opportunities and a phenomenal amount of resources from the research standpoint were poured into that."

Fauci, who heads the U.S. National Institute of Allergy⁹ and Infectious Diseases, says those advances have changed the outlook for many young patients.

In what he calls the "darkest years of his medical career," during the '80s and early '90s, Fauci said that an AIDS patient with pneumocystis pneumonia¹⁰ survived on average only six months after the diagnosis. Today, it couldn't be more different.

"If someone walks into my clinic now at the NIH and is 20 years old and is newly infected, they will likely live to older than 69 years old. I don't think there is a medical intervention¹¹ that we've had, at least in the last several decades, that has had that profound impact."

Better treatments notwithstanding, a vaccine is the real goal, but success on that front has been elusive. HIV is a particularly challenging opponent that can hide out in the body and avoid the body's own defenses.

When scientists develop a vaccine for a disease, they try, in a sense, to replicate¹² what the body's own immune system does, "which means that the body has already proven the concept that [a] it can eradicate¹³ the virus, it can create an immune response that will be protective for the rest of your life. Not the case with HIV. So we have to do better than what the natural infection does," said Fauci.

A recent vaccine trial conducted in Thailand showed some limited results for some of the people in the study, but even if that approach pans out, it will still be years before the vaccine gets to market.

In the meantime, Dr. Fauci outlined several other strategies for fighting HIV/AIDS that are in the works, but he said all have their drawbacks.

Topical microbicides are medicines applied¹⁴ to the genitals, typically by women before sexual intercourse¹⁵. There are significant traditional obstacles in many places, and women who use them often have to use them covertly¹⁶. But Fauci says such medicines are an important way to prevent the spread of HIV.

"Topical microbicides [are] an absolute must that we must do for so many reasons, not the least important of which is that we do need something, particularly in the developing world, where women can take into their own hands their prevention of something that, up to now, has essentially¹⁷ been beyond their control in certain cultures."

Fauci said tests are underway to see if a prevention method called pre-exposure prophylaxis is effective. In theory, giving anti-AIDS drugs to people who haven't been exposed to HIV should be an effective strategy, but he said it's difficult enough in many places for health workers to reach and treat people who are sick; it's likely to be even more difficult to get people who are healthy to accept anti-AIDS medicines as a preventive measure.

Another approach is called "voluntary test and treat," which involves mass testing and treatment of everyone who tests positive for HIV, regardless of whether they are sick or their blood count suggests they are likely to get sick.

Anthony Fauci and Robert Hecht spoke¹⁸ about the fight against AIDS at a symposium¹⁹ sponsored by the journal Health Affairs.

 

1 unprecedented   

adj.无前例的，新奇的

参考例句：

• The air crash caused an unprecedented number of deaths.这次空难的死亡人数是空前的。
• A flood of this sort is really unprecedented.这样大的洪水真是十年九不遇。

2 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。

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 elusive   

adj.难以表达(捉摸)的；令人困惑的；逃避的

参考例句：

• Try to catch the elusive charm of the original in translation.翻译时设法把握住原文中难以捉摸的风韵。
• Interpol have searched all the corners of the earth for the elusive hijackers.国际刑警组织已在世界各地搜查在逃的飞机劫持者。

5 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

6 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

7 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。

8 mechanisms   

n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 allergy   

n.(因食物、药物等而引起的)过敏症

参考例句：

• He developed an allergy to pollen.他对花粉过敏。
• The patient had an allergy to penicillin.该患者对青霉素过敏。

10 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

11 intervention   

n.介入，干涉，干预

参考例句：

• The government's intervention in this dispute will not help.政府对这场争论的干预不会起作用。
• Many people felt he would be hostile to the idea of foreign intervention.许多人觉得他会反对外来干预。

12 replicate   

v.折叠，复制，模写；n.同样的样品；adj.转折的

参考例句：

• The DNA of chromatin must replicate before cell division.染色质DNA在细胞分裂之前必须复制。
• It is also easy to replicate,as the next subsection explains.就像下一个小节详细说明的那样，它还可以被轻易的复制。

13 eradicate   

v.根除，消灭，杜绝

参考例句：

• These insects are very difficult to eradicate.这些昆虫很难根除。
• They are already battling to eradicate illnesses such as malaria and tetanus.他们已经在努力消灭疟疾、破伤风等疾病。

14 applied   

adj.应用的；v.应用，适用

参考例句：

• She plans to take a course in applied linguistics.她打算学习应用语言学课程。
• This cream is best applied to the face at night.这种乳霜最好晚上擦脸用。

15 intercourse   

n.性交；交流，交往，交际

参考例句：

• The magazine becomes a cultural medium of intercourse between the two peoples.该杂志成为两民族间文化交流的媒介。
• There was close intercourse between them.他们过往很密。

16 covertly   

adv.偷偷摸摸地

参考例句：

• Naval organizations were covertly incorporated into civil ministries. 各种海军组织秘密地混合在各民政机关之中。 来自辞典例句
• Modern terrorism is noteworthy today in that it is being done covertly. 现代的恐怖活动在今天是值得注意的，由于它是秘密进行的。 来自互联网

17 essentially   

adv.本质上，实质上，基本上

参考例句：

• Really great men are essentially modest.真正的伟人大都很谦虚。
• She is an essentially selfish person.她本质上是个自私自利的人。

18 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

19 symposium   

n.讨论会，专题报告会；专题论文集

参考例句：

• What have you learned from the symposium?你参加了这次科学讨论会有什么体会？
• The specialists and scholars present at the symposium come from all corners of the country.出席研讨会的专家学者们来自全国各地。