VOA常速英语2008年-Bush Announces New Anti-Malarial Measures in Ta

By Scott Stearns
Dar Es Salaam¹
18 February 2008

President Bush is in Tanzania where he has announced a new initiative to fight malaria². VOA White House Correspondent Scott Stearns reports, the program aims to provide insecticide-treated bed nets to every Tanzanian child under five.

The president and Mrs. Bush toured Meru District Hospital in northern Tanzania where they gave pregnant women insecticide-treated bed nets to protect them and their children against malaria.

"The suffering caused my malaria is needless," Mr. Bush said. "And every death caused by malaria is unacceptable."

Bed nets are one of the simplest and most effective means of preventing malaria. So President Bush announced a new initiative with the World Bank to provide more than five million free bed nets over the next six months. That should be enough to cover all Tanzanian children under five.

As the nets are manufactured locally, President Bush says they not only prevent disease but create jobs as well.

"So as this campaign protects women and children from malaria, it also boosts local economies," Mr. Bush said. "It helps develop a culture of bed net use that will be sustained long after relief programs have ended."

The president's five-year, $1.2 billion malaria initiative is meant to cut malaria deaths by half in 15 African countries.

The program includes training for health workers, indoor spraying, and treatment for up to 85 percent of the most vulnerable groups - primarily pregnant women, children under five, and people living with HIV/AIDS.

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete says the U.S. initiative has dramatically cut incidents of the diseases on the island of Zanzibar where 35 percent of people tested positive for malaria in 2004. Last year it was just one percent.

"Mr. President, today there are thousands of women and children who would have died from malaria that are alive in Tanzania thanks to your malaria support program," Kikwete said.

The United States also funds a program in Dar es Salaam to kill mosquito larvae³ in the water where they are born. That has cut the malaria risk in Tanzania's largest city by half since 2002.

The president is doing some long-distance lobbying on this Africa trip, calling on Congress and American taxpayers⁴ to continue funding the President's Malaria Initiative - or PMI - as well as a program to fight AIDS known as PEPFAR.

Stephen Morrison is Co-Director of the Africa program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a private policy research group in Washington.

"In both cases, the emphasis on PEPFAR and PMI is both to reassure⁵ the African audience that these commitments are going to be sustained and to assuage⁶ doubt as we look towards the end of this administration, but also to play back to an American audience about the payback and the value of all of this," Morrison said.

After Tanzania, the president visits Rwanda, Ghana, and Liberia.

1 salaam   

n.额手之礼，问安，敬礼；v.行额手礼

参考例句：

• And the people were so very friendly:full of huge beaming smiles,calling out "hello" and "salaam".这里的人民都很友好，灿然微笑着和我打招呼，说“哈罗”和“萨拉姆”。
• Salaam is a Muslim form of salutation.额手礼是穆斯林的问候方式。

2 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

3 larvae   

n.幼虫

参考例句：

• Larvae are parasitic on sheep.幼虫寄生在绵羊的身上。
• The larvae prey upon small aphids.这种幼虫以小蚜虫为食。

4 taxpayers   

纳税人，纳税的机构( taxpayer的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Finance for education comes from taxpayers. 教育经费来自纳税人。
• She was declaiming against the waste of the taxpayers' money. 她慷慨陈词猛烈抨击对纳税人金钱的浪费。

5 reassure   

v.使放心，使消除疑虑

参考例句：

• This seemed to reassure him and he continued more confidently.这似乎使他放心一点，于是他更有信心地继续说了下去。
• The airline tried to reassure the customers that the planes were safe.航空公司尽力让乘客相信飞机是安全的。

6 assuage   

v.缓和，减轻，镇定

参考例句：

• The medicine is used to assuage pain.这种药用来止痛。
• Your messages of cheer should assuage her suffering.你带来的这些振奋人心的消息一定能减轻她的痛苦。