VOA标准英语2012--Many African Men Fail to Get HIV Treatment

Many African Men Fail to Get HIV Treatment

A new study says men in sub-Saharan Africa are not accessing HIV/AIDS treatment nearly as often as women. That means many are dying prematurely¹. Researchers are calling for a more balanced approach to gender² in fighting the epidemic³.

Edward Mills has spent many years in Africa supervising HIV/AIDS treatment programs. He said it became obvious who was receiving antiretroviral drugs and who wasn’t.

“Whenever you walk into a busy clinic, it’s almost exclusively women and children. And there might be one or two men there, who appear to be reluctant to be there. They’re frequently brought by their wives. And I had wondered, well, where are all the men? Maybe they’re accessing a men’s only clinic or something like that. And after several years of observing this, I came around to discussing this with my colleagues and they say, no, no, this is it. These are the men who show up. And they’re frequently only the ones who are brought by their wives,” he said.

Where and why?

Mills is an associate professor and Canada Research Chair of Health Sciences at the University of Ottawa.

“Where are all of the men? And nobody seemed to know what the answer was. If all of these women are infected with HIV, surely there are men that are infected as well. Then I was able to look into testing centers, which is where people go and get tested. It’s frequently a different place than where they go and get treatment. There are a lot of men at the testing centers, but yet, you don’t see them at the clinics for antiretroviral care. And so somewhere in between the time of testing and the time of accessing clinical care we’re missing out on these men,” he said.

So, having learned where the men were, the next question Mills faced was why didn’t they go for life saving treatment?

He said, “There’s a lot of stigma⁴ about men having done something wrong. So, if a man has been found to be HIV positive, chances are he’s done something he shouldn’t have been doing. So, it’s either that you have a Christian⁵ country like Uganda, for example, where they shouldn’t have been having pre-marital sex, or they’ve been visiting sexworkers, or they’ve been having a relationship outside of their marriage. So, a variety of things that create stigma.”

Mills said that the men are often very shamed that they are HIV positive and afraid of what their wives will say. While many men do not go to HIV clinics, they do seek treatment. It’s just that the treatment they use won’t work.

“Men initially⁶ try to treat the HIV themselves. This is what we believe to be the case. And so they maybe go to pharmacies⁷ and they buy some aspirin⁸ or some Tylenol and they don’t want to accept that they they’ve got HIV. And so we’re doing a very bad job of educating men about HIV (being) a chronic⁹ disease that you’re going to die from if you don’t access care at the right time. And you can’t treat it yourself. Traditional medicines aren’t going to work, nor is buying cheap medicines at a pharmacy¹⁰ going to work,” he said.

Raising awareness¹¹

Mills said a new approach is needed to encourage African men to get treatment for HIV. He says possibly a major campaign by UNAIDS may be needed to jump start efforts.

“It’s possible that with the increase in male circumcision that’s going on that’s happening for young males, in their adolescents or early 20s, that that could be an opportunity to test them and counsel them and try to engage them in care. But to be honest I think we need to take this at a much larger scale; and we need to start implementing¹² public health campaigns that are aimed at targeting men’s behavior around accessing health care,” he said.

Current HIV/AIDS campaigns for men are different than those for women.

“So, if you’re in Africa at the moment you will see public health campaigns aimed at men telling them to reduce the number of sexual partners that they’ve got. But it’s all about stopping certain activities. It’s not about implementing access to health care. And that’s probably where we need to go because you do see that for females a lot of the time. They’ll have campaigns on the roadside with big posters up saying if you’re pregnant to make sure you get an HIV test so you save your baby,” he said.

On the other hand, Mills said women should also receive the behavior change message. He cites HIV figures for discordant¹³ couples. These are couples where one person is HIV positive and the other is not.

“If we believe the way that the gender story has been told to us all these years, then in any discordant relationship you would expect the person who is HIV positive to be the male. But when you look at the evidence, actually about 50 percent of the time it’s the male and 50 percent of the time it’s the female. So, there are several different interpretations¹⁴ of this, but the best one is it appears that both genders¹⁵ go outside of their marriage,” he said.

He said women, whether African or not, often do better with health care because they are more in tune¹⁶ with their bodies. Also, women frequently learn of their HIV status while receiving care during pregnancy¹⁷. Mills says when men access health care they are often in the late stage of disease.

Professor Mills has worked in Africa for 10 years, mostly in South Africa, Uganda and Rwanda.

1 prematurely   

adv.过早地，贸然地

参考例句：

• She was born prematurely with poorly developed lungs. 她早产，肺部未发育健全。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• His hair was prematurely white, but his busy eyebrows were still jet-black. 他的头发已经白了，不过两道浓眉还是乌黑乌黑的。 来自辞典例句

2 gender   

n.（生理上的）性，（名词、代词等的）性

参考例句：

• French differs from English in having gender for all nouns.法语不同于英语，所有的名词都有性。
• Women are sometimes denied opportunities solely because of their gender.妇女有时仅仅因为性别而无法获得种种机会。

3 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

4 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

5 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

6 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

7 pharmacies   

药店

参考例句：

• Still, 32 percent of the pharmacies filled the prescriptions. 但仍然有32%的药剂师配发了这两张药方。 来自互联网
• Chinese herbal pharmacies, and traditional massage therapists in the Vancouver telephone book. 中药店，和传统的按摩师在温哥华的电话簿里。 来自互联网

8 aspirin   

n.阿司匹林

参考例句：

• The aspirin seems to quiet the headache.阿司匹林似乎使头痛减轻了。
• She went into a chemist's and bought some aspirin.她进了一家药店，买了些阿司匹林。

9 chronic   

adj.(疾病)长期未愈的，慢性的；极坏的

参考例句：

• Famine differs from chronic malnutrition.饥荒不同于慢性营养不良。
• Chronic poisoning may lead to death from inanition.慢性中毒也可能由虚弱导致死亡。

10 pharmacy   

n.药房，药剂学，制药业，配药业，一批备用药品

参考例句：

• She works at the pharmacy.她在药房工作。
• Modern pharmacy has solved the problem of sleeplessness.现代制药学已经解决了失眠问题。

11 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。

12 implementing   

v.实现( implement的现在分词 )；执行；贯彻；使生效

参考例句：

• -- Implementing a comprehensive drug control strategy. ――实行综合治理的禁毒战略。 来自汉英非文学 - 白皮书
• He was in no hurry about implementing his unshakable principle. 他并不急于实行他那不可动摇的原则。 来自辞典例句

13 discordant   

adj.不调和的

参考例句：

• Leonato thought they would make a discordant pair.里奥那托认为他们不适宜作夫妻。
• For when we are deeply mournful discordant above all others is the voice of mirth.因为当我们极度悲伤的时候，欢乐的声音会比其他一切声音都更显得不谐调。

14 interpretations   

n.解释( interpretation的名词复数 )；表演；演绎；理解

参考例句：

• This passage is open to a variety of interpretations. 这篇文章可以有各种不同的解释。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The involved and abstruse passage makes several interpretations possible. 这段艰涩的文字可以作出好几种解释。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 genders   

n.性某些语言的（阳性、阴性和中性，不同的性有不同的词尾等）( gender的名词复数 )；性别；某些语言的（名词、代词和形容词）性的区分

参考例句：

• There are three genders in German: masculine, feminine and neuter. 德语中有叁性：阳性、阴性和中性。 来自辞典例句
• Japan was fourth among the genders of foreign students. 日本在二十个留美学生输送地中列第四位。 来自互联网

16 tune   

n.调子；和谐，协调；v.调音，调节，调整

参考例句：

• He'd written a tune,and played it to us on the piano.他写了一段曲子，并在钢琴上弹给我们听。
• The boy beat out a tune on a tin can.那男孩在易拉罐上敲出一首曲子。

17 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。