VOA慢速英语20060710a

DEVELOPMENT REPORT - U.S. Approves New AIDS Treatment for Poor CountriesBy Jill Moss¹

Broadcast: Sun, 9 Jul 2006 16:00:00 UTC

I'm Steve Ember with the VOA Special English Development Report.

The United States Food and Drug Administration has approved a new AIDS treatment for poor countries. The medicine combines three drugs commonly used to suppress H.I.V., the virus that causes AIDS. The new product contains the active ingredients in the drugs sold under the trade names Epivir, Retrovir and Viramune.

The drugs are lamivudine, zidovudine, and nevirapine.

The drug company Aurobindo Pharma in Hyderabad, India, will manufacture the approved combination. The tablets will be offered to fifteen countries under the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

President Bush announced that program during his State of the Union speech in two thousand three. The five-year, fifteen thousand million dollar plan seeks to provide AIDS drugs to developing countries.

This is the first time the Food and Drug Administration has approved a product like this under the plan. The decision is a tentative approval. That means the product meets all quality and safety requirements for marketing² in the United States.

Full approval would mean that the product could be sold in the United States. But that is not possible because of patent protections and marketing agreements.

The new fixed-dose combination tablet will simplify treatment of H.I.V. Patients will take a single tablet two times a day, instead of having to take several medicines. There are not only cost savings³, but also less of a threat of drug resistance caused by missed treatments.

Experts say around forty million people are living with H.I.V. More than sixty percent are in southern Africa. That area has only eleven percent of the world's population.


A young HIV positive orphan⁴ lies in his cot at the Nyumbani children home, a hospice for AIDS orphans⁵ in Nairobi, Kenya

The United Nations says H.I.V. rates worldwide are believed to have reached their highest levels in the late nineteen nineties. They appear to have settled after that, although rates continue to increase in several countries. For example, the two thousand six U.N. AIDS report said the epidemics⁶ in eastern Europe and central Asia continue to expand.

AIDS has resulted in twenty-five million deaths in the last twenty-five years. The World Bank declared it a development crisis in two thousand. And more than thirteen million children under the age of fifteen have lost one or both parents because of it. Experts believe this number will double by two thousand ten.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss. For transcripts⁷ of our reports, go to www.unsv.com. I'm Steve Ember.

1 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。

2 marketing   

n.行销，在市场的买卖，买东西

参考例句：

• They are developing marketing network.他们正在发展销售网络。
• He often goes marketing.他经常去市场做生意。

3 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

4 orphan   

n.孤儿；adj.无父母的

参考例句：

• He brought up the orphan and passed onto him his knowledge of medicine.他把一个孤儿养大，并且把自己的医术传给了他。
• The orphan had been reared in a convent by some good sisters.这个孤儿在一所修道院里被几个好心的修女带大。

5 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。

6 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

7 transcripts   

n.抄本（ transcript的名词复数 ）；转写本；文字本；副本

参考例句：

• Like mRNA, both tRNA and rRNA are transcripts of chromosomal DNA. tRNA及rRNA同mRNA一样，都是染色体DNA的转录产物。 来自辞典例句
• You can't take the transfer students'exam without your transcripts. 没有成绩证明书，你就不能参加转学考试。 来自辞典例句