2006年VOA标准英语-WHO Chief Dies After Emergency Brain Surge

By Lisa Schlein
Geneva
22 May 2006

Lee Jong-wook  
  
World Health Organization Director General Dr. Lee Jong-wook has died after undergoing surgery over the weekend for a blood clot¹ in his brain. He was 61-years-old and leaves behind a wife and son.

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Dr. Lee Jong-wook's death was announced just as the World Health Assembly began its annual conference.

After a musical interlude, the director of the United Nations Office in Geneva read a message from the U.N. secretary-general in tribute to the man who would not be around to lead this week's important public health debate.

"The secretary-general has also asked me to convey to the World Health Assembly, to the World Health Organization and its staff his sincere condolences on this sudden and tragic² loss of Director-General Dr. Lee," he said. "The secretary-general extends his most heartfelt condolences to Dr. Lee's family."

Dr. Lee had served only three years of his five-year term as WHO's director-general. He joined the WHO 23 years ago. He was educated in Korea and the University of Hawaii. His first experience in public health was in the treatment of leprosy in the South Pacific.

He made his reputation as a campaigner in the treatment of tuberculosis³ and the use of vaccines⁴ to prevent the disease in children. In the early 1990's, Dr. Lee led the polio eradication⁵ initiative that wiped out this crippling disease in China. He moved to Geneva in 1994 to become director of WHO's global program for vaccines and immunization.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt remembers a trip he took with Dr. Lee last fall to six countries in Southeast Asia.

"During the course of our travels, Dr. Lee shared with me how he was as a young boy from the war-torn country Korea. He spoke⁶ with me of three difficult, arduous⁷ months where he and his mother walked mile after mile after mile in search of his father who was, during that cold winter, in exile," he said. "Dr. Lee experienced hardship at a very early age. And, my sense is it was the reason he chose to devote himself to public service. He offered WHO visionary leadership."

Among his accomplishments⁸ as head of the World Health Organization, Dr. Lee began a program to ensure that three-million people with HIV/AIDS would have access to the medicines they needed by the end of 2005. While the world fell short of the target, he is widely credited with having shown that universal access to medicines was possible.

Dr. Lee's associates speak fondly of, what they call, Dr. Lee's self deprecating wit. They say he had a quirky, unexpected humor that he often used to diffuse⁹ a difficult situation or just to make his friends laugh.

1 clot   

n.凝块；v.使凝成块

参考例句：

• Platelets are one of the components required to make blood clot.血小板是血液凝固的必须成分之一。
• The patient's blood refused to clot.病人的血液无法凝结。

2 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

3 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。

4 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。

5 eradication   

n.根除

参考例句：

• The eradication of an established infestation is not easy. 根除昆虫蔓延是不容易的。
• This is often required for intelligent control and eradication. 这经常需要灵巧的控制与消除。

6 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。

7 arduous   

adj.艰苦的，费力的，陡峭的

参考例句：

• We must have patience in doing arduous work.我们做艰苦的工作要有耐性。
• The task was more arduous than he had calculated.这项任务比他所估计的要艰巨得多。

8 accomplishments   

n.造诣；完成( accomplishment的名词复数 )；技能；成绩；成就

参考例句：

• It was one of the President's greatest accomplishments. 那是总统最伟大的成就之一。
• Among her accomplishments were sewing,cooking,playing the piano and dancing. 她的才能包括缝纫、烹调、弹钢琴和跳舞。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

9 diffuse   

v.扩散；传播；adj.冗长的；四散的，弥漫的

参考例句：

• Direct light is better for reading than diffuse light.直射光比漫射光更有利于阅读。
• His talk was so diffuse that I missed his point.他的谈话漫无边际，我抓不住他的要点。