voa标准英语2008-Zimbabwe's Cholera Epidemic Hits Home

In Zimbabwe more than 400 people have died from an outbreak of cholera¹ and the number of people infected is now believed to be more than 10,000 according to the United Nations. The Zimbabwean government has appealed for aid and blamed the country's problem on western sanctions. Peta Thornycroft has this report on one of the epidemic²'s victims, a civil rights activist³ who had survived many arrests on the streets of Harare.
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Cholera patients wait for treatment at Budiriro Polyclinic in Harare, 26 Nov 2008

Julia Chapeyama, 44, a single mother, did not tell her family she was ill, because she was so worried about her 13-year-old daughter, Cynthia, who was in the hospital with cholera.

When Chapeyama collapsed⁵ last week from the same disease, a friend took her in a wheel barrow to the nearest clinic where she died a few hours later.

Chapeyama was a street vendor⁶ and member of the pro-democracy group "Women of Zimbabwe Arise", known as WOZA. She had been arrested many times during peaceful demonstrations⁷ by the country's notoriously brutal⁸ security forces.

Chapeyama's friends are now caring for her two youngest daughters.

They believe she caught cholera by drinking water from a shallow well in the garden. The well was dug five weeks earlier because her house had been without city water for four months.

Chapeyama's 17-year-old daughter, Sandra, said sometimes the city water would come but only briefly⁹ and in the middle of the night.

"When we fetch water from the tap it will be green with some bacteria and if you put it in the bucket you can see there is dirt in the water," she said.

Cholera is a highly contagious¹⁰ form of diarrhea but is easily prevented with the provision of clean water and sanitation¹¹ facilities and easily treated with rehydration medicines.

Humanitarian¹² organizations say Zimbabwe is experiencing a major cholera epidemic because of crumbling¹³ infrastructure¹⁴ and services.

The United Nations Children's Fund,UNICEF, says the current death rate from the epidemic is four percent -- far higher than the normal death rate of one percent.

The epidemic has also spread to neighboring South Africa, Botswana and Mozambique.

UNICEF has provided hundreds of thousands of water purification tablets to residents of Harare. It is also drilling boreholes and distributing clean water in many of Harare's highly populated suburbs.

But experts worry that the summer rains, which are imminent¹⁵, will worsen the cholera situation.

Community leaders say aid and education to combat the cholera epidemic have come primarily from western humanitarian agencies, private organizations such as WOZA and the Movement for Democratic Change party which opposes the ZANU-PF party of President Robert Mugabe. They say the government health ministry¹⁶ has done little.

WOZA activist Salina Madukani, said the government's efforts to fight the epidemic have been restricted to making statements.

"Just words and hearing them talking on television but nothing, they are offering nothing," Madukani said.

Public services in most Zimbabwean towns have been deteriorating¹⁷ for more than a decade because of a lack of maintenance by the cash-strapped government.

The first democratically elected mayor of Harare, Elias Mudzure of the MDC, warned six years ago that the city's water distribution and sewage systems were in on the verge¹⁸ of collapse.

He was sacked by ZANU-PF one year after he was elected and the party took over the city's affairs.

ZANU-PF blames western "sanctions' for the cholera epidemic.

The European Union and United States have imposed targeted sanctions on senior Zimbabwean officials because of authoritarianism¹⁹ and human rights abuses.

However, international donors²⁰ are feeding nearly one-half of the population and in recent years have provided most of the drugs used in government health services.

1 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

2 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。

3 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

4 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

5 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。

6 vendor   

n.卖主；小贩

参考例句：

• She looked at the vendor who cheated her the other day with distaste.她厌恶地望着那个前几天曾经欺骗过她的小贩。
• He must inform the vendor immediately.他必须立即通知卖方。

7 demonstrations   

证明( demonstration的名词复数 )； 表明； 表达； 游行示威

参考例句：

• Lectures will be interspersed with practical demonstrations. 讲课中将不时插入实际示范。
• The new military government has banned strikes and demonstrations. 新的军人政府禁止罢工和示威活动。

8 brutal   

adj.残忍的，野蛮的，不讲理的

参考例句：

• She has to face the brutal reality.她不得不去面对冷酷的现实。
• They're brutal people behind their civilised veneer.他们表面上温文有礼，骨子里却是野蛮残忍。

9 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

10 contagious   

adj.传染性的，有感染力的

参考例句：

• It's a highly contagious infection.这种病极易传染。
• He's got a contagious laugh.他的笑富有感染力。

11 sanitation   

n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备

参考例句：

• The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看，这个地段非常糟糕。
• Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。

12 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

13 crumbling   

adj.摇摇欲坠的

参考例句：

• an old house with crumbling plaster and a leaking roof 一所灰泥剥落、屋顶漏水的老房子
• The boat was tied up alongside a crumbling limestone jetty. 这条船停泊在一个摇摇欲坠的石灰岩码头边。

14 infrastructure   

n.下部构造，下部组织，基础结构，基础设施

参考例句：

• We should step up the development of infrastructure for research.加强科学基础设施建设。
• We should strengthen cultural infrastructure and boost various types of popular culture.加强文化基础设施建设，发展各类群众文化。

15 imminent   

adj.即将发生的，临近的，逼近的

参考例句：

• The black clounds show that a storm is imminent.乌云预示暴风雨即将来临。
• The country is in imminent danger.国难当头。

16 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

17 deteriorating   

恶化，变坏( deteriorate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The weather conditions are deteriorating. 天气变得越来越糟。
• I was well aware of the bad morale and the deteriorating factories. 我很清楚，大家情绪低落，各个工厂越搞越坏。

18 verge   

n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• She was on the verge of bursting into tears.她快要哭出来了。

19 authoritarianism   

权力主义，独裁主义

参考例句：

• Modern authoritarianism is a vestige of traditional personal rule. 现代独裁主义则是传统的个人统治的残余。
• In its latter days it was a byword for authoritarianism, incompetence, and corruption. 在后期，它是独裁、无能和腐化的代号。

20 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》