VOA标准英语2013--Antiretrovirals Allow Near Normal Life Spans

 

Antiretrovirals Allow Near Normal Life Spans

Antiretroviral drugs have saved the lives of millions of people infected with the HIV, the AIDS virus. Now, new research shows HIV-infected people, who start treatment, can expect near normal life spans. The study was conducted in South Africa.

In 2011, South Africa had about 5.6 million people infected with HIV - more than any other country. That same year, over 270,000 people in South Africa died from AIDS-related illnesses and complications. So the more information health officials can gather about the disease, the better they can project treatment plans and costs.

University of Cape¹ Town’s Dr. Leigh Johnson collected data on treatment programs between 2001 and 2010. The study did not start out to specifically look at longevity².

“I think partly it was concern about the life insurance policies that were being provided to people with HIV. And in many cases people with HIV were being charged very high premiums³. And we were worried about whether or not these very high premiums were really justified⁴ by the mortality risk in patients once they were on treatment,” he said.

There was a second aspect to the study.

“It was also partly motivated by an attempt to understand the extent to which antiretroviral treatment is reducing overall levels of mortality in South Africa. So we are involved in producing demographic forecasts for South Africa; and in order to produce these democratic forecasts we need estimates of how long people are surviving on antiretroviral treatment,” said Johnson.

The overall findings show treatment can enable people to live a near normal life span. However, Johnson said that patients must meet a few conditions for that to happen. The first is the stage of disease at the time treatment begins. That’s measured by the number of CD4 immune cells that have survived the onslaught of HIV.

“Previously⁵, the treatment guidelines in South Africa recommended that patients defer⁶ their initiation⁷ of therapy until their CD4 count had dropped below 200 cells per microliter. That’s quite an advanced stage of disease to be starting treatment. And what we showed was that patients who started treatment before reaching that threshold of 200 cells per microliter had much high life expectancies⁸ than those patients who only waited until their CD4 count was below the 200 threshold,” he said.

Basically, at the 200 level the immune system has collapsed⁹ and the patient is an easy target for opportunistic infections.

There are newer World Health Organization guidelines that South Africa currently follows. It now tries to begin treatment when the CD4 count is at 350, a marked difference in the health of the immune system. However, despite that, Johnson said many people are still waiting until advanced stages of disease before seeking treatment. It’s a problem many countries now face.

Another factor was age. A 20 year old patient would naturally have a longer life expectancy¹⁰ than a 60 year old. The findings showed the 20 year old would get an additional 27 years of life and the 60 year old an extra 10.

So, what does it all mean?

“From a demographic point of view it means that our projections¹¹ of mortality are going to be much lower than what we were expecting previously. But it does also mean that we are expecting many more long term survivors¹² on antiretroviral treatment in [the] future. So we’re going to have a much greater older age population than was previously anticipated. And I think it’s important from a kind of a fiscal¹³ point of view because we obviously need to budget for the long term provision of treatment for these patients,” he said.

South Africa funds about 80 percent of its national treatment program through its own resources. Johnson said that it’s difficult to determine whether it will be able to sustain that as the number of people on treatment grows. Another factor will be the cost of new generations of antiretroviral drugs that will be needed as HIV builds resistance to current drugs.

1 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

2 longevity   

n.长命；长寿

参考例句：

• Good habits promote longevity.良好的习惯能增长寿命。
• Human longevity runs in families.人类的长寿具有家族遗传性。

3 premiums   

n.费用( premium的名词复数 )；保险费；额外费用；（商品定价、贷款利息等以外的）加价

参考例句：

• He paid premiums on his life insurance last year. 他去年付了人寿保险费。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Moves are afoot to increase car insurance premiums. 现正在酝酿提高汽车的保险费。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 justified   

a.正当的，有理的

参考例句：

• She felt fully justified in asking for her money back. 她认为有充分的理由要求退款。
• The prisoner has certainly justified his claims by his actions. 那个囚犯确实已用自己的行动表明他的要求是正当的。

5 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

6 defer   

vt.推迟，拖延；vi.(to)遵从，听从，服从

参考例句：

• We wish to defer our decision until next week.我们希望推迟到下星期再作出决定。
• We will defer to whatever the committee decides.我们遵从委员会作出的任何决定。

7 initiation   

n.开始

参考例句：

• her initiation into the world of marketing 她的初次涉足营销界
• It was my initiation into the world of high fashion. 这是我初次涉足高级时装界。

8 expectancies   

期待，期望( expectancy的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Each of us came with his own expectancies. 我们每个人都有自己的希望。
• In fact, modern lifestyles are actually exacerbating the gap between male and female life expectancies. 实际上，现代生活方式确实加大了男女寿命差别的鸿沟。

9 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

10 expectancy   

n.期望，预期，（根据概率统计求得）预期数额

参考例句：

• Japanese people have a very high life expectancy.日本人的平均寿命非常长。
• The atomosphere of tense expectancy sobered everyone.这种期望的紧张气氛使每个人变得严肃起来。

11 projections   

预测( projection的名词复数 )； 投影； 投掷； 突起物

参考例句：

• Their sales projections are a total thumbsuck. 他们的销售量预测纯属估计。
• The council has revised its projections of funding requirements upwards. 地方议会调高了对资金需求的预测。

12 survivors   

幸存者，残存者，生还者( survivor的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The survivors were adrift in a lifeboat for six days. 幸存者在救生艇上漂流了六天。
• survivors clinging to a raft 紧紧抓住救生筏的幸存者

13 fiscal   

adj.财政的，会计的，国库的，国库岁入的

参考例句：

• The increase of taxation is an important fiscal policy.增税是一项重要的财政政策。
• The government has two basic strategies of fiscal policy available.政府有两个可行的财政政策基本战略。