VOA标准英语2010-African Maternal and Child Mortality Rate

Joe DeCapua 27 April 2010

Sub-Saharan Africa’s maternal¹ and child mortality rate remains² high despite an overall worldwide reduction, according to The Lancet medical journal.

About 350,000 women die annually³ from child-birth related accidents. As a result, the group Human Rights Watch is pressing for women and children’s health care to be at the forefront of the G8 summit in June.

 

It’s been 10 years since most world government’s made a commitment to reduce maternal and child mortality rates. As part of the Millennium⁴ Development Goals (MDGs), an agreement was made to tackle preventable child-birth fatalities⁵. But little progress has been made in Sub-Saharan Africa.

What went wrong?

Samuel Akhigbe was excited about becoming a father. He took his wife to deliver her baby at a reputable maternity⁶ hospital in Lagos, Nigeria.

“Constantly I was talking with all of the doctors on ground and they kept telling me everything was fine, was good right up to the time they wheeled her into the theatre. Just before they did that, they listened again to the child’s heart beat. And for the tenth time, I heard the heart beat very strong,” he says.

Then tragedy struck. The baby died right after delivery and the doctors never gave the devastated⁷ parents an explanation.

“I couldn’t believe all of the nine months and everything, the heart beat I had listened to and everything I had listed to was like an illusion,” he says.

Although he was given no official cause of death, Akhigbe believes his child’s death was preventable.

“They shouldn’t have waited all the while for her to be dilated⁸. They should have gone ahead with the cesarean by 4pm. Danita was probably weak from all the struggling and [medicine] they gave to Jessica,” he says.

Falling short of the goal

Liesl Gerntholtz, a Human Rights Watch group advocate, says of all the Millennium Development Goals, the least progress has been made in maternal and child mortality reduction. However, she is hopeful the upcoming G8 summit will lead to greater funding for women’s reproductive care.

“A lot of women die because of hemorrhaging. So you need the facilities to be able to give them blood transfusions⁹ and being able to store adequate quantities of blood. Obstructive labor¹⁰ is also a huge cause of death. So you ultimately need to refer women to where they can have a safe cesarean section,” she says.

And access to health care systems.

Gerntholtz says, “That means you need to have trained health care workers, you need facilities, you need good transport systems and you need to give women information about what they need to do.”

She says funding to poor countries must be monitored to ensure it’s well spent.

“We hope that resources will be made available to poorer countries.  We hope that when those resources are made available that there will be proper mechanisms¹¹ to ensure that the money is spent…. And that ultimately systems that are developed protect women’s human rights,” she says.

Bereaved¹² parents like Akhigbe say they want global health policies to benefit everyday people in developing nations.

“Most of the facilities are actually not there and most of the people to implement¹³ them are not doing anything about it. So we have young doctors working with little of nothing and miracles are expected. First it has to do with getting implementation¹⁴ for all these so called policies,” he says.

The Lancet medical journal says six countries account for over half of maternal deaths: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Ethiopia, and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

 

1 maternal   

adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的

参考例句：

• He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
• The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。

2 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。

3 annually   

adv.一年一次，每年

参考例句：

• Many migratory birds visit this lake annually.许多候鸟每年到这个湖上作短期逗留。
• They celebrate their wedding anniversary annually.他们每年庆祝一番结婚纪念日。

4 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

5 fatalities   

n.恶性事故( fatality的名词复数 )；死亡；致命性；命运

参考例句：

• Several people were injured, but there were no fatalities. 有几个人受伤，但没有人死亡。
• The accident resulted in fatalities. 那宗意外道致多人死亡。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 maternity   

n.母性，母道，妇产科病房；adj.孕妇的，母性的

参考例句：

• Women workers are entitled to maternity leave with full pay.女工产假期间工资照发。
• Trainee nurses have to work for some weeks in maternity.受训的护士必须在产科病房工作数周。

7 devastated   

v.彻底破坏( devastate的过去式和过去分词)；摧毁；毁灭；在感情上（精神上、财务上等）压垮adj.毁坏的；极为震惊的

参考例句：

• The bomb devastated much of the old part of the city. 这颗炸弹炸毁了旧城的一大片地方。
• His family is absolutely devastated. 他的一家感到极为震惊。

8 dilated   

adj.加宽的，扩大的v.（使某物）扩大，膨胀，张大( dilate的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• Her eyes dilated with fear. 她吓得瞪大了眼睛。
• The cat dilated its eyes. 猫瞪大了双眼。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 transfusions   

n.输血( transfusion的名词复数 )；输液；倾注；渗透

参考例句：

• Still, transfusions have apparently never spread the disease, even among hemophiliacs. 还有，输血很明显从未传播过这种病，即使在血友病人之间也是如此。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 口蹄疫疯牛病
• Blood transfusions are a special, limited example of tissue transplantation. 输血是一个特殊的、有限制的组织移植的例子。 来自辞典例句

10 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

11 mechanisms   

n.机械( mechanism的名词复数 )；机械装置；[生物学] 机制；机械作用

参考例句：

• The research will provide direct insight into molecular mechanisms. 这项研究将使人能够直接地了解分子的机理。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He explained how the two mechanisms worked. 他解释这两台机械装置是如何工作的。 来自《简明英汉词典》

12 bereaved   

adj.刚刚丧失亲人的v.使失去（希望、生命等）( bereave的过去式和过去分词)；（尤指死亡）使丧失（亲人、朋友等）；使孤寂；抢走（财物）

参考例句：

• The ceremony was an ordeal for those who had been recently bereaved. 这个仪式对于那些新近丧失亲友的人来说是一种折磨。
• an organization offering counselling for the bereaved 为死者亲友提供辅导的组织

13 implement   

n.(pl.)工具，器具；vt.实行，实施，执行

参考例句：

• Don't undertake a project unless you can implement it.不要承担一项计划，除非你能完成这项计划。
• The best implement for digging a garden is a spade.在花园里挖土的最好工具是铁锹。

14 implementation   

n.实施，贯彻

参考例句：

• Implementation of the program is now well underway.这一项目的实施现在行情看好。