VOA慢速英语 2007 0424b

VOICE ONE:

This is SCIENCE IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English. I’m Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember. On our program this week, we tell about the disease tuberculosis¹. It is one of the world's leading infectious² diseases. We also tell about efforts to fight tuberculosis in several countries.

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VOICE ONE:

 
A nurse attends to a TB  patient at a government hospital in Gauhati, India
The World Health Organization says one-third of the world’s population is infected with the bacteria that cause tuberculosis. That is about two billion people. One in ten people infected with the TB bacteria will become sick with tuberculosis at some time during their life. The WHO says almost nine million people became sick with the disease in two thousand five. About one million six hundred thousand people died of the disease that year. However, the WHO also says almost sixty percent of TB cases around the world are discovered. A large majority of them are cured.

VOICE TWO:

Most people infected with the bacteria never develop active TB. However, people with weak body defense³ systems often develop the disease. TB can damage a person’s lungs or other parts of the body and cause serious sickness.

The disease is spread by people who have active, untreated TB bacteria in their throat or lungs. The bacteria are spread into the air when infected people talk or expel⁴ air suddenly.

Most TB cases can be cured with medicines. Successful treatment of TB requires close cooperation among patients, doctors and other health care workers. The World Health Organization has a five-step program to guarantee that TB patients take their medicine correctly. The program is called Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course, or DOTS. Directly observed means that patients must go to local health centers every day or several times a week to take their medicines. Health care workers watch to make sure patients take their medicine every day. Full treatment usually lasts from six to nine months to destroy all signs of the bacteria.

VOICE ONE:

It is very important for patients to be educated about the disease and its treatment. Sometimes patients fail to finish taking the medicine ordered by their doctors. Experts say this is because some patients feel better after only two to four weeks of treatment and stop taking their medicine. This can lead to the TB bacteria becoming stronger, resistant⁵ to drugs, and more difficult to treat.

This kind of TB is called multi-drug resistant tuberculosis or MDR-TB. The World Health Organization says MDR-TB is one hundred times more costly⁶ to treat than the other form of the disease.

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VOICE TWO:

The World Health Organization says most deaths from tuberculosis are in developing countries. More than half of all deaths from TB are in Asia. And half of all new cases are in six Asian countries. They are Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Pakistan and the Philippines.

More than twenty-five percent of the world's multi-drug resistant tuberculosis cases are in Asia. Patients with MDR-TB must take more powerful and costly drugs for more than two years. Some patients experience side effects from the drugs.

VOICE ONE:

Experts say the fight against TB and drug resistance has been successful in Hong Kong. In the past fifty years, Hong Kong has reduced cases of TB by almost ninety-eight percent. In the nineteen fifties, the British colonial⁷ government built TB hospitals and began giving vaccines⁸ to children. The government also replaced poor, unclean housing with modern public housing.

Today, the Chinese government gives anti-TB drugs free of cost in public health centers. Health workers visit patients who fail to go to health centers to get their medicines. So Hong Kong has very low levels of drug-resistant TB.

VOICE TWO:

 The World Health Organization is improving its efforts against TB in China. Almost one million four hundred thousand people there develop active TB each year. Almost twenty-five percent of the world's multi-drug resistant cases are in China. The WHO says the situation is now improving. It says half of China's provinces have put the DOTS treatment method into effect. This has resulted in about a fifty percent reduction in deaths from TB.

The WHO has also set a goal for nations in the Western Pacific area. They are being urged to cut by half infection rates and deaths from TB within three years. Doctors say this goal may not be possible because the disease AIDS is a serious problem in the Western Pacific. Other problems are poverty and lack of money for public health.

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VOICE ONE:

In Africa, more than three million people are living with TB. Five hundred thousand people there die each year from the disease. The number of TB victims is rising quickly in Africa. This is mainly because of the virus that causes AIDS. The virus weakens the body's ability to fight disease.

Drug-resistant TB is a serious problem in South Africa. Sizwe Hospital in the city of Johannesburg treats only people with MDR-TB. Three thousand new cases of MDR-TB were identified in Johannesburg alone last year. People with this kind of TB have only a fifty percent chance of being cured. Patients must take one painful injection of medicine and as many as twenty-four pills each day. Treatment can take up to two years. The drugs have serious side effects.

VOICE TWO:

Few people survive a new kind of TB, called Extreme Drug-Resistant TB. This disease is resistant to just about every drug known to science.

The National Health Laboratory in Johannesburg tests for drug-resistant TB. Its workers test five hundred samples from patients from all over southern Africa every day. The testing often last several weeks because each bacterium⁹ must be tested in several ways. Almost one-fourth of the bacteria tested are found to be drug-resistant. These have to be tested again to show which drugs they resist.

During this time, the patient may be infecting other people. So it is important to find ways to test for the disease more quickly. The laboratory is now carrying out experiments with tests that identify drug-resistant bacteria within two days. This helps health workers quickly identify an infected person and begin treatment.

VOICE ONE:

Patients being treated for MDR-TB are separated from their families, sometimes for years. This causes economic and social problems for patients and family members. The head doctor at Sizwe Hospital says most patients accept treatment and separation. Health workers believe patients with drug-resistant TB should be separated to protect their communities. But human rights activists¹⁰ say this would be a violation¹¹ of their rights.

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VOICE TWO:

Tuberculosis is a health emergency in Russia. In February, the Russian parliament approved almost three billion dollars to fight infectious diseases such as TB.

Russian studies show that eighty-three of every one hundred thousand people in Russia are infected with TB. Thirty thousand people die of the disease every year. However, the number of people infected is not fully¹² known because officials say not all cases are reported. The WHO official for TB control in Central Asia says education about tuberculosis is lacking. The population does not know much about the disease or how it is treated.

VOICE ONE:

The United Nations says the highest rates of reported infection in Russia are among men between thirty-five and sixty-four years of age. Many of these men are unemployed¹³ and drink too much alcohol. Many are former prisoners who are also homeless. So treating these men is difficult. Health experts say tuberculosis spreads easily in prisons. The infection rate in prisons is about twenty times higher than the general population. Drug-resistant TB is also a problem there.

VOICE TWO:

World Health Organization officials say fighting TB in Russia is not just a medical problem but also one of economics¹⁴ and organization. They say government money is now available for health care workers to visit treatment centers to study the care and progress of the disease. There is also more money to train workers and provide equipment for laboratories. Health officials say there is now hope in the fight against TB.

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VOICE ONE:

This SCIENCE IN THE NEWS program was written by Shelley Gollust. Brianna Blake was our producer. I’m Barbara Klein.

VOICE TWO:

And I’m Steve Ember.  Join us again next week for more news about science in Special English on the Voice of America.

1 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。

2 infectious   

adj.传染的，有传染性的，有感染力的

参考例句：

• Influenza is an infectious disease.流感是一种传染病。
• What an infectious laugh she has!她的笑声多么具有感染力啊！

3 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

4 expel   

vt.把...开除，驱逐，放逐，排出，喷出

参考例句：

• They were told at first that they should simply expel the refugees.一开始有人告诉他们应该直接将那些难民驱逐出境。
• The headmaster may expel the boy from the school.校长可能要把那个男孩从学校开除。

5 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。

6 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。

7 colonial   

adj.殖民地的，关于殖民的；n.殖民地，居民

参考例句：

• The natives were unwilling to be bent by colonial power.土著居民不愿受殖民势力的摆布。
• The people of Africa have successfully fought against colonial rule.非洲人民成功地反抗了殖民统治。

8 vaccines   

疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His team are at the forefront of scientific research into vaccines. 他的小组处于疫苗科研的最前沿。
• The vaccines were kept cool in refrigerators. 疫苗放在冰箱中冷藏。

9 bacterium   

n.(pl.)bacteria 细菌

参考例句：

• The bacterium possibly goes in the human body by the mouth.细菌可能通过口进入人体。
• A bacterium is identified as the cause for his duodenal ulcer.一种细菌被断定为造成他十二指肠溃疡的根源。

10 activists   

n.（政治活动的）积极分子，活动家( activist的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His research work was attacked by animal rights activists . 他的研究受到了动物权益维护者的抨击。
• Party activists with lower middle class pedigrees are numerous. 党的激进分子中有很多出身于中产阶级下层。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 violation   

n.违反(行为)，违背(行为)，侵犯

参考例句：

• He roared that was a violation of the rules.他大声说，那是违反规则的。
• He was fined 200 dollars for violation of traffic regulation.他因违反交通规则被罚款200美元。

12 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

13 unemployed   

adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的

参考例句：

• There are now over four million unemployed workers in this country.这个国家现有四百万失业人员。
• The unemployed hunger for jobs.失业者渴望得到工作。

14 economics   

n.经济学，经济情况

参考例句：

• He is studying economics,which subject is very important.他正在学习经济学，该学科是很重要的。
• One can't separate politics from economics.不能把政治与经济割裂开来。