2006年VOA标准英语-Asian AIDS Conference Focuses on Protectin

By Matt Steinglass
Hanoi
23 March 2006

Asia's children are being left behind in the fight against HIV/AIDS a regional conference in Vietnam has heard. The three-day meeting is the first to focus on limiting the spread of AIDS among young people and helping¹ children infected or orphaned² by the disease.

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Vietnamese orphans³ infected with  AIDS virus are cared for by women inmates⁴ at Ba Vi Drug Rehabilitation⁵ Center   
  

In the East Asia-Pacific region, 31,000 children under 15 are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, and 1.5 million young people have been orphaned by the disease.

U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam Michael Marine⁶ is one of 250 delegates at the first East Asia and Pacific Regional Consultation⁷ on Children and HIV/AIDS, going on this week in Hanoi. He says the anti-AIDS fight must start to target children.

"The issue of orphans and vulnerable children has not been a major part of the debate surrounding HIV/AIDS in Asia," said Marine. "I believe it is time for that to change."

One urgent task identified at the conference was the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV. Simple drug treatments and bottle-feeding can drastically cut infection rates among babies of HIV-positive women.

But Hans Troedsson, head of the World Health Organization office in Hanoi, says current programs are not reaching enough HIV-positive women in Asia.

"Coverage⁸ of prevention of mother-to-child transmission intervention⁹ is still too low at all levels. We can and should eliminate transmission of HIV to children," he said. "It is doable."

Officials with the UN AIDS agency say that if Asian governments scaled-up their response to HIV in children, they could prevent six million new infections by 2010.

UNICEF's regional director for East and the Pacific, Anupama Rao Singh, says such goals are attainable¹⁰.

"I think there are examples from this region, for instance Thailand is an example, … where just by getting prevention of mother to child transmission services accepted by more than 90 percent of the pregnant women, they have actually met the target that was set at the U.N. Special Session on AIDS, which was to reduce transmission from mothers to children, babies, by half," said Singh.

Other issues discussed at the conference include increasing access to drug treatment for children with AIDS and improving the lives of children whose parents have died of the disease. But delegates emphasize that protecting children from AIDS involves not just new ideas, but old ones that have never been fully¹¹ implemented¹², like education on prevention.

One recent survey in China showed that 50 percent of girls aged¹³ between 15 and 20 could not name a single way of protecting themselves from HIV.

Thirteen-year-old Huy, from Vietnam, was among the young people attending the conference through the efforts of the charity Save the Children.

Huy says he does not have HIV, but his father, a heroin¹⁴ addict¹⁵, does. He says no one in his school knows his father is HIV-positive. If they did, he says, the other kids would discriminate¹⁶ against him. As long as they do not know, they treat him normally.

Despite years of efforts by governments and aid organizations, the stigma¹⁷ of HIV in Asia remains¹⁸ strong. And children, delegates at the Hanoi conference said, are uniquely vulnerable to discrimination because of it.

1 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

2 orphaned   

[计][修]孤立

参考例句：

• Orphaned children were consigned to institutions. 孤儿都打发到了福利院。
• He was orphaned at an early age. 他幼年时便成了孤儿。

3 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。

4 inmates   

n.囚犯( inmate的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• One of the inmates has escaped. 被收容的人中有一个逃跑了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The inmates were moved to an undisclosed location. 监狱里的囚犯被转移到一个秘密处所。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 rehabilitation   

n.康复，悔过自新，修复，复兴，复职，复位

参考例句：

• He's booked himself into a rehabilitation clinic.他自己联系了一家康复诊所。
• No one can really make me rehabilitation of injuries.已经没有人可以真正令我的伤康复了。

6 marine   

adj.海的；海生的；航海的；海事的；n.水兵

参考例句：

• Marine creatures are those which live in the sea. 海洋生物是生存在海里的生物。
• When the war broke out,he volunteered for the Marine Corps.战争爆发时，他自愿参加了海军陆战队。

7 consultation   

n.咨询；商量；商议；会议

参考例句：

• The company has promised wide consultation on its expansion plans.该公司允诺就其扩展计划广泛征求意见。
• The scheme was developed in close consultation with the local community.该计划是在同当地社区密切磋商中逐渐形成的。

8 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。

9 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。

10 attainable   

a.可达到的，可获得的

参考例句：

• They set the limits of performance attainable. 它们确定着可达到的运行限度。
• If objectives are to be meaningful to people, they must be clear, attainable, actionable, and verifiable. 如果目标对人们是具有意义的，则目标必须是清晰的，能达到的，可以行动的，以及可供检验的。

11 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。

12 implemented   

v.实现( implement的过去式和过去分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• This agreement, if not implemented, is a mere scrap of paper. 这个协定如不执行只不过是一纸空文。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The economy is in danger of collapse unless far-reaching reforms are implemented. 如果不实施影响深远的改革，经济就面临崩溃的危险。 来自辞典例句

13 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

14 heroin   

n.海洛因

参考例句：

• Customs have made their biggest ever seizure of heroin.海关查获了有史以来最大的一批海洛因。
• Heroin has been smuggled out by sea.海洛因已从海上偷运出境。

15 addict   

v.使沉溺；使上瘾；n.沉溺于不良嗜好的人

参考例句：

• He became gambling addict,and lost all his possessions.他习染上了赌博，最终输掉了全部家产。
• He assisted a drug addict to escape from drug but failed firstly.一开始他帮助一个吸毒者戒毒但失败了。

16 discriminate   

v.区别，辨别，区分；有区别地对待

参考例句：

• You must learn to discriminate between facts and opinions.你必须学会把事实和看法区分出来。
• They can discriminate hundreds of colours.他们能分辨上百种颜色。

17 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

18 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。