VOA慢速英语20060527a

IN THE NEWS - W.H.O. Members Mourn Death of Agency Chief Lee Jong-wookBy Nancy Steinbach

Broadcast: Saturday, May 27, 2006

I'm Steve Ember with IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English.


Lee Jong-wook

Health ministers from more than one hundred ninety countries met this week in Geneva to discuss issues like bird flu and other threats. But the yearly meeting of the World Health Assembly opened with tragic¹ news. Lee Jong-wook, head of the World Health Organization, had died hours before he was supposed to give a speech at the meeting.

Doctor Lee suffered a stroke last weekend. He died Monday following an operation to remove a blood clot² from his brain. Doctor Lee, a South Korean, was sixty-one years old.

The W.H.O. named Assistant Director-General Anders Nordstrom as acting³ leader. Officials say it could take as a long as a year for the organization to choose a new director-general.

On Wednesday, more than one thousand people attended funeral services in Geneva for Lee Jong-wook. Speakers there and at the fifty-ninth World Health Assembly praised his efforts to improve health conditions around the world.

Doctor Lee had worked for twenty-three years for the W.H.O., the United Nations health agency. He played a major part in campaigns against tuberculosis⁴, leprosy, malaria⁵ and polio. He became director-general in two thousand three.

One of his major goals was to get treatment to many more people with H.I.V. and AIDS in developing countries. He worked to make the W.H.O. more effective in dealing⁶ with infectious⁷ diseases.

The agency says his work has made the world better prepared for the possible spread of avian flu. One example is an agreement last year among W.H.O. members to develop a fast reporting system for suspected cases.

More than two hundred cases have been confirmed in ten countries since two thousand three. These have resulted in more than one hundred twenty deaths.

Most of the cases are believed to have been caused directly by contact with infected birds or their waste.

But as world health ministers were meeting in Geneva, medical teams were investigating an unusual situation in northern Indonesia. At least six members of a family died from the h-five-n-one virus in the past month.

The W.H.O. sent experts to North Sumatra to investigate. The agency said all the cases can be directly linked to close and extended periods of contact with a patient.

Julie Gerberding heads the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She said in Geneva that experts believed the disease spread among family members caring for others who were sick.

Early reports suggested that three of the people had spent a night in a small room with the woman who had the first case in the family.

Officials say tests on the victims found no evidence that the virus had changed in ways that would let it spread easily from person-to-person.

IN THE NEWS in VOA Special English was written by Nancy Steinbach. Read and listen to our reports at www.unsv.com. I'm Steve Ember.

1 tragic   

adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的

参考例句：

• The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
• Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。

2 clot   

n.凝块；v.使凝成块

参考例句：

• Platelets are one of the components required to make blood clot.血小板是血液凝固的必须成分之一。
• The patient's blood refused to clot.病人的血液无法凝结。

3 acting   

n.演戏，行为，假装；adj.代理的，临时的，演出用的

参考例句：

• Ignore her,she's just acting.别理她，她只是假装的。
• During the seventies,her acting career was in eclipse.在七十年代，她的表演生涯黯然失色。

4 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

5 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。

6 dealing   

n.经商方法，待人态度

参考例句：

• This store has an excellent reputation for fair dealing.该商店因买卖公道而享有极高的声誉。
• His fair dealing earned our confidence.他的诚实的行为获得我们的信任。

7 infectious   

adj.传染的，有传染性的，有感染力的

参考例句：

• Influenza is an infectious disease.流感是一种传染病。
• What an infectious laugh she has!她的笑声多么具有感染力啊！