VOA标准英语2010年-Rwanda Tackles Top Killer of Children

Joe DeCapua 02 September 2010

For more than a year now, Rwanda has been immunizing its children against pneumonia¹.  Its goal is to save the lives of 6,000 kids every year.  This week, health officials and others are checking on the program’s progress.

Pneumonia is the leading killer² of children under age five worldwide.  Over one and a half million die every year from the disease, mostly in developing countries.

Rwanda takes the lead

In April 2009, Rwanda, with help from the GAVI Alliance and other partners, started a vaccination³ program against pneumococcal disease.

Alex Palacios, GAVI’s special representative, says, “Rwanda itself has ensured, first of all, that public health is a top priority.  I think that that is a commitment and a decision made at the highest levels.  And it has maintained that special priority over the years.  It also happens to be a country which just about a year ago introduced the first pneumococcal vaccine⁴ in Africa.”

Palacios says the two top killers⁵ of kids can be prevented with modern medicine.

“If you consider that the combination of pneumonia, mostly from pneumococcal disease, and diarrhea, generally the result of rotavirus infection, are the major causes of child mortality -  you’re looking at globally about 8.8 million children dying each year from often preventable disease.  And about 40 percent of those are dying from just two causes: pneumonia and diarrhea,” he says.

Pneumococcal disease is also a major cause of bacterial⁶ meningitis, which is often fatal.

Millions could be saved

Malaria⁷ used to be the top killer of children in Rwanda.  But a campaign against the disease has seen at least a 27 percent decline in children suffering from malaria.

Palacios says great success can also be made against pneumonia and diarrhea.

 Thomas-Rippe
Rwandan children receiving pneumococcal vaccine, April 2009
“The good news is that when GAVI was first created in 2000 we didn’t have those two particular vaccines⁸ against a form of pneumonia and rotavirus.  Today we do.  So we have the opportunity, over the next 5 years or so, in particular if you’re thinking about the Millennium⁹ Development Goal of reduction of child mortality by two-thirds, to make a very major contribution to achievement of that goal and save many lives,” he says.

He says the lives of well over four million children could be saved over the next five years.

Currently, immunization against pneumococcal disease is only in its early stages in Africa, with Rwanda at the forefront.  But that’s about to change.

“Over the next four or five years, we will see 47 countries, based on their own expressions of interest in applications for support, introducing the pneumococcal vaccine and actually over 40 countries introducing the rotavirus vaccine,” he says.

Palacios adds immunization has the power to bring dramatic improvements in health in a relatively¹⁰ short time.

“It’s not easy to do that across all of development or across all of health, but immunization luckily has that capacity,” he says.

The GAVI Alliance special representative says an “enormous opportunity” exists to improve health.  But to do that takes money.  Palacios says to save the lives of millions of children over the next five years will cost $2.6 billion in additional funds. It’s a serious “resource challenge,” he says, but one that can be overcome.
 

1 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

2 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

3 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

4 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

5 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

6 bacterial   

a.细菌的

参考例句：

• Bacterial reproduction is accelerated in weightless space. 在失重的空间，细菌繁殖加快了。
• Brain lesions can be caused by bacterial infections. 大脑损伤可能由细菌感染引起。

7 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。

8 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。

9 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。

10 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。