VOA标准英语2015--埃博拉使得贫困家庭更加困难

Ebola Hits Households Hard 埃博拉使得贫困家庭更加困难

The World Bank says the economies of Liberia and Sierra Leone continue to be hard hit by the Ebola crisis. The effects of the outbreak have spread throughout the countries, and not just the areas with the highest infection rates.

The latest World Bank report focuses on how the epidemic¹ is affecting families. That is, at the household level. Nearly half of Liberian heads of households are out of work, while in Sierra Leone, many in urban areas have lost their jobs.

Kristen Himelein -- a senior bank economist² and statistician -- said the bank is conducting monthly surveys.

“Our concern is that as we focus on the health aspect,that is beginning to resolve itself, particularly in Liberia and hopefully soon in Sierra Leone. But there are a lot of impacts that could be long term for the economies. And we want to make sure that we start the dialogue for the impact on households.”

She described some of the job losses.

“In Sierra Leone, our latest report found that there are nearly 180,000 workers that are outside agriculture that are no longer working. And this is particularly impacting petty traders. We’ve seen they’ve lost a lot of jobs and that those that are still operating their revenues declined almost 40 percent,” she said.

In Liberia, the World Bank reports women are “particularly vulnerable as the labor³ market stagnates⁴.”

Himelein said, “Many women are involved in petty trading and this is non-agricultural self-employment. And this is a sector⁵ where we’ve seen the largest impacts. So, as markets have closed down and these women have not had a place to sell their goods, they’ve had to consume their working capital. They’ve had to spend that money to meet household demand.”

She said 60 percent of Liberian women are not working compared to 40 percent of the men.

Households in both countries have been forced to make short-term economic decisions to cope with job losses or food shortages. 

“That puts their future well-being⁶ in peril⁷. For example, in Liberia, 80 percent of those surveyed had either sold assets or slaughtered⁸ livestock⁹ or borrowed money, spent savings¹⁰, delayed investments. And when they take these types of coping actions – while they’re completely understandable in the short term – they really impact the households’ ability to maintain their standard of living or to move out of poverty in the future,” Himelein said.

Other survey findings show that more people seeking treatments for illnesses other than Ebola are avoiding health clinics in Sierra Leone’s capital Freetown. Himelein said they’re afraid of getting sick with the virus. In Liberia, many said they do not have enough money to buy rice, regardless of the price.

The World Bank senior economist explained how the economic survey is being conducted.

“We’re using kind of an innovative¹¹ method. We’re using a high frequency cellphone survey. In both countries we were fortunate to have nationally representative surveys before the crisis broke out and they contained phone numbers. And so, about half of the people that were interviewed in these large surveys before the crisis had phone numbers. And we’ve been calling these phone numbers on a regular basis,” she said.

The Gallup Organization is conducting the phone surveys in Liberia in conjunction with the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-information Services. In Sierra Leone, information is collected by Statistics Sierra Leone in partnership¹² with Innovations for Poverty Action.

1 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。

2 economist   

n.经济学家，经济专家，节俭的人

参考例句：

• He cast a professional economist's eyes on the problem.他以经济学行家的眼光审视这个问题。
• He's an economist who thinks he knows all the answers.他是个经济学家，自以为什么都懂。

3 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。

4 stagnates   

v.停滞，不流动，不发展( stagnate的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The water stagnates in the ditch. 水在沟中停滞而变浊。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• Consequently, income per capita stagnates. 其结果，人均国民收入停滞不前。 来自辞典例句

5 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

6 well-being   

n.安康，安乐，幸福

参考例句：

• He always has the well-being of the masses at heart.他总是把群众的疾苦挂在心上。
• My concern for their well-being was misunderstood as interference.我关心他们的幸福，却被误解为多管闲事。

7 peril   

n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物

参考例句：

• The refugees were in peril of death from hunger.难民有饿死的危险。
• The embankment is in great peril.河堤岌岌可危。

8 slaughtered   

v.屠杀，杀戮，屠宰( slaughter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• The invading army slaughtered a lot of people. 侵略军杀了许多人。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Hundreds of innocent civilians were cruelly slaughtered. 数百名无辜平民遭残杀。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 livestock   

n.家畜，牲畜

参考例句：

• Both men and livestock are flourishing.人畜两旺。
• The heavy rains and flooding killed scores of livestock.暴雨和大水淹死了许多牲口。

10 savings   

n.存款，储蓄

参考例句：

• I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
• By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

11 innovative   

adj.革新的，新颖的，富有革新精神的

参考例句：

• Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
• He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。

12 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。