VOA常速英语2008年-Guinea Faces Serious Challenges in Fight Agains

By Nico Colombant
Nzerekore, Guinea
05 February 2008

Health and aid workers in the west African country, Guinea, say they face many challenges to help victims of HIV / AIDS, mostly because of a lack of funding and inadequate¹ information campaigns. Nico Colombant reports from Nzerekore, Guinea, near the border with Sierra Leone.

AIDS orphans² receive free schooling³ and one meal a day at this cash-strapped center run by aid workers in Nzerekore.

The director of the program, Antoinette Honomou, says sometimes the aid workers use some of their own money to help with meals and supplies.

Orphans here are only given basic elementary school teaching. There are not enough volunteers to teach the older orphans.

Atthe same center, the head of a local non-governmental organization organizes distribution of monthly food rations⁴ to HIV / AIDS patients.

Antoine Sandy says, if he had more donor⁵ funding, there is much more he could do.

His organization helps 500 infected patients, but only has free ARV drugs for about 200 of them.

Sandy explains that, in the past two decades, the region has been overrun with displaced people from conflicts in nearby Liberia, Sierra Leone and, more recently, Ivory Coast. He says that is one reason HIV / AIDS may be more of a problem here, than elsewhere in Guinea.

Other explanations he gives are low literacy, as well as a lack of awareness⁶ for the importance of having protected sex.

Statistics are difficult to come by, but the last study done for Nzerekore indicated seven percent of the city's adult population had HIV, much higher than the national average.

Further east, along the border with Sierra Leone, pregnant women undergo free HIV testing.

HIV-positive pregnant women and mothers get free counseling and drugs to decrease the chances they will transmit the virus to their babies.

Mid-wife Fatoumata Guilavogui says, if she had access to more money, she would go to villages and mosques⁷ to organize information sessions about testing, protection and the risks of transmission. She says many Guineans remain full of taboos⁸ and stigmas⁹, when it comes to this disease.

Mamadou Bodie Diallo is a doctor who helps coordinate¹⁰ activities between Guinea's government and the United Nations Children's Fund. He says HIV-related services need to be expanded. So far, less than 10 percent of pregnant women receive the free testing and counseling - most of them in cities.

He says, in rural areas, there are many local traditions which create unfortunate health problems.

He says these include polygamy and the custom of marrying female widows to the brother of a dead husband or if the woman dies first, immediately giving the widowed husband another wife from the same family.

He says this can create a deadly cycle, if AIDS is involved.

Back in Nzerekore, Sandy, the head of the local NGO, says, whichever way the disease was contracted, patients with terminal cases of AIDS should be allowed to die in dignity.

He says most of these victims are usually rejected by hospitals, thrown out on the streets to die when they have no more money. He says, even if they are going to die, they should at least die in a hospital. However, he says there is no money for such a program.

1 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

2 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。

3 schooling   

n.教育；正规学校教育

参考例句：

• A child's access to schooling varies greatly from area to area.孩子获得学校教育的机会因地区不同而大相径庭。
• Backward children need a special kind of schooling.天赋差的孩子需要特殊的教育。

4 rations   

定量( ration的名词复数 )； 配给量； 正常量； 合理的量

参考例句：

• They are provisioned with seven days' rations. 他们得到了7天的给养。
• The soldiers complained that they were getting short rations. 士兵们抱怨他们得到的配给不够数。

5 donor   

n.捐献者；赠送人；(组织、器官等的)供体

参考例句：

• In these cases,the recipient usually takes care of the donor afterwards.在这类情况下，接受捐献者以后通常会照顾捐赠者。
• The Doctor transplanted the donor's heart to Mike's chest cavity.医生将捐赠者的心脏移植进麦克的胸腔。

6 awareness   

n.意识，觉悟，懂事，明智

参考例句：

• There is a general awareness that smoking is harmful.人们普遍认识到吸烟有害健康。
• Environmental awareness has increased over the years.这些年来人们的环境意识增强了。

7 mosques   

清真寺； 伊斯兰教寺院，清真寺； 清真寺，伊斯兰教寺院( mosque的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Why make us believe that this tunnel runs underneath the mosques? 为什么要让我们相信这条隧洞是在清真寺下？
• The city's three biggest mosques, long fallen into disrepair, have been renovated. 城里最大的三座清真寺，过去年久失修，现在已经修复。

8 taboos   

禁忌( taboo的名词复数 )； 忌讳； 戒律； 禁忌的事物（或行为）

参考例句：

• She was unhorsed by fences, laws and alien taboos. 她被藩蓠、法律及外来的戒律赶下了马。
• His mind was charged with taboos. 他头脑里忌讳很多。

9 stigmas   

n.耻辱的标记，瑕疵( stigma的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Wind may affect the set of fruit by desiccating the stigmas. 风可影响座果，因为风吹干了柱头。 来自辞典例句
• Monterey's transpiration of pistils and stigmas are lowest. Monterey的柱头和雌蕊的失水速率均较低。 来自互联网

10 coordinate   

adj.同等的，协调的；n.同等者；vt.协作，协调

参考例句：

• You must coordinate what you said with what you did.你必须使你的言行一致。
• Maybe we can coordinate the relation of them.或许我们可以调和他们之间的关系。