VOA标准英语2013--Progress Has Been Made In Containing Malaria, More Needs To Be Done

 

Progress Has Been Made In Containing Malaria¹, More Needs To Be Done

For every minute that goes by, a child under five years of age dies of malaria.

Malaria has been diagnosed on every continent, but sub-Saharan Africa is the region most afflicted². Dr. Anthony Fauci, who heads malaria research at the U.S. National Institutes of Health, calls the parasitic³ disease one of the world's worst killers⁴.

“We’ve made substantial progress in a global community way with malaria because there are several countries that predict that by 2015 they will have substantially -- by more than 50 percent and up to 75 percent -- decreased the incidents of malaria. Having said that as the good news, the sobering news is that we still have 660,000 deaths per year from malaria,” Fauci said.

Multiple strategies have been used to fight malaria. Bed nets treated with insecticide protect against mosquito bites. Those infected are treated with drugs early before their disease turns deadly. Pesticides⁵ are sprayed to control mosquito populations.

Researchers, including those at Johns Hopkins School of Public Health in Baltimore, are working on changing the mosquito that transmits the parasite⁶ that causes malaria.

"We could stop this [disease] and control the mosquitoes by either eliminating them, which is very difficult to do, or by treating them to make them less effective in carrying the infection," said Dr. Peter Agee, the director of the malaria research program at Johns Hopkins. 

Agee says Johns Hopkins has had great success with the mosquito treatment strategy in Zambia, where its researchers are working with an established hospital.

"The burden of disease has been knocked down by 98 percent in a decade. So we've gone from 1,500 children being admitted to the hospital each year to a couple dozen," Agee said.

But the success of the global anti-malaria campaign could also be its weakness, according to Dr. Fauci.

"My concern about even saying there’s good progress is that we have been here before, not only with malaria but with other diseases. When you start to see a down-tick in things, people say, 'Well, we have the process or the disease under control. We can move on to emphasizing other things' -- which would be a really bad mistake," Fauci said.

Fauci notes there is no vaccine⁷ yet against malaria; mosquitoes that transmit it are becoming resistant⁸ to pesticides; and in some places, the malaria parasite is becoming resistant to the drug that treats it. Complacency and cuts in funding could allow malaria to reestablish itself in areas where it has been reduced or eliminated. And the human stakes are still high: in the time it has taken for this report, three more children have died from malaria. 

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 afflicted   

使受痛苦，折磨( afflict的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• About 40% of the country's population is afflicted with the disease. 全国40%左右的人口患有这种疾病。
• A terrible restlessness that was like to hunger afflicted Martin Eden. 一阵可怕的、跟饥饿差不多的不安情绪折磨着马丁·伊登。

3 parasitic   

adj.寄生的

参考例句：

• Will global warming mean the spread of tropical parasitic diseases?全球变暖是否意味着热带寄生虫病会蔓延呢？
• By definition,this way of life is parasitic.从其含义来说，这是种寄生虫的生活方式。

4 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

5 pesticides   

n.杀虫剂( pesticide的名词复数 )；除害药物

参考例句：

• vegetables grown without the use of pesticides 未用杀虫剂种植的蔬菜
• There is a lot of concern over the amount of herbicides and pesticides used in farming. 人们对农业上灭草剂和杀虫剂的用量非常担忧。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 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。

7 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。

8 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。