环球英语 — 370：Survive to Five

　　Voice 1
Welcome to Spotlight¹, I'm Joshua Leo.
Voice 2
And I'm Liz Waid. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no matter where in the world they live.
Voice 3
"One day when I was 17, I was visiting my mother at the hospital. A little six-year-old boy named Moussa was brought in. His whole body was shaking with convulsions. The mother said evil spirits possessed² him. A traditional healer had been giving the boy plants and other medicines for 15 days. But his condition had only got worse. By the time his mother brought him in, it was too late. Moussa died that day of malaria³. He could have been saved with medicines that cost about a dollar. That was the day I decided⁴ to become a doctor."
Voice 1
This is a story told by Houleymata Diarra, a doctor from Mali. Today's Spotlight is on her work with the group Save the Children. She is helping⁵ prevent the death of children in Africa.
Voice 2
Mali is a country in Western Africa. It is the seventh largest country in Africa. But Mali is also one of the poorest countries in the world. Mali has a population of about twelve million [12,000,000]. Most of these people live in poor rural areas with no electricity, telephones or clean water. They may not have schools or health centers.
Voice 1
People in Mali make very little money. And about half of the people in Mali are under the age of fifteen. Like in most poor countries, people in Mali can not always get good medical care. For many people, the only way to get a doctor is by walking, riding a bicycle, or riding an animal on dirt roads.
Voice 2
But the group that is most often affected⁶ by these problems is women and children. Many women get married at a very young age. Many of these girls get pregnant⁷ at a young age also. This can cause problems when it is time for the baby to be born.
Voice 1
When a baby is born in a poor village, there can be many different difficulties. The people helping with the birth may not have clean tools. And often, they do not have the correct training. This can hurt the woman giving birth. The most common cause of death for teenage girls in Mali is childbirth. In the United States, out of one hundred thousand [100,000] women giving birth, seventeen die. In Mali, that number is fifteen hundred [1,500].
Voice 2
And when a woman dies giving birth, often the baby dies too. Doctor Diarra says that people accept the high number of deaths as just a part of life.
Voice 3
"Babies are not even named in Mali until they are a week old. But even newborns who survive are at great risk."
Voice 1
Dr. Diarra says that one in every five children in Mali do not live to the age of five. But the saddest part of this number is that most of these deaths could be prevented. Simple medicine and health care could save the lives of thousands of children each year.
Voice 2
That is why Doctor Diarra is working with the group Save the Children. Save the Children was started in the United Kingdom. It has existed for over ninety [90] years. The group works to improve the lives of children all around the world. They do this through education, health care, economic aid, and emergency aid. Recently, the group has started a new project called "Survive to Five." The project aims to save the lives of children who are under five years old.
Voice 1
Nine million [9,000,000] children around the world die before they are five years old. That is twenty five thousand [25,000] dying every day. Save the Children wants to reduce this number with six simple solutions.
Voice 2
First, they give children injections of medicine to protect them against common diseases. Second, the group helps mothers with breastfeeding their babies. Breastfeeding helps protect babies from disease and it gives them important chemicals to grow strong. Third, they provide children with medicine to fight infections such as pneumonia⁸. Fourth, the group helps to treat children who suffer from diarrhoea. Fifth, they provide thin cloth bed nets to keep children from getting malaria from infected insects. And finally, Save the Children helps provide better care for women and babies during childbirth.
Voice 1
Doctor Diarra is the Save the Children leader in Mali. She tells of one example where medicines are helping.
Voice 3
"A good example is tetanus infections. These are a major killer⁹ of mothers and newborn babies. They become infected from the use of a dirty knife to cut the umbilical cord, the tube connecting the baby to the mother. It also happens by putting unclean substances on the cut. But a simple injection of medicine for the pregnant mother protects her and her baby."
Voice 2
Save the Children led a tetanus medicine project in Mali. The goal was to give the medicine to one out of every three women who were old enough to have children. Health workers travelled across the country to people's homes. They gave the women in these villages the medicine. When the project was over, 80 percent of the women were protected. The group hopes to do similar projects to protect children from other diseases.
Voice 1
Doctor Diarra is happy that she can be part of the solution. She is happy that work is being done to help children live to be five years old. But she also knows that there is much work still in Mali. She believes that people all over the world can help children Survive to Five.
Voice 3
"As I see it, the world is one house. We are all women. Countries and continents make no difference. Mothers in Mali say to me 'I do not want to be afraid of pregnancy¹⁰. I do not want to die. I do not want my child to die. I want my child to grow, to be healthy, to get an education.' It is the same way mothers feel in America, and everywhere. I think that once people learn about the situation in Mali and other places where women and children are dying needlessly¹¹, they will want to do something about it."
 

1 spotlight   

n.公众注意的中心，聚光灯，探照灯，视听，注意，醒目

参考例句：

• This week the spotlight is on the world of fashion.本周引人瞩目的是时装界。
• The spotlight followed her round the stage.聚光灯的光圈随着她在舞台上转。

2 possessed   

adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的

参考例句：

• He flew out of the room like a man possessed.他像着了魔似地猛然冲出房门。
• He behaved like someone possessed.他行为举止像是魔怔了。

3 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。

4 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

5 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

6 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

7 pregnant   

adj.怀孕的，怀胎的

参考例句：

• She is a pregnant woman.她是一名孕妇。
• She is pregnant with her first child.她怀了第一胎。

8 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

9 killer   

n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者

参考例句：

• Heart attacks have become Britain's No.1 killer disease.心脏病已成为英国的头号致命疾病。
• The bulk of the evidence points to him as her killer.大量证据证明是他杀死她的。

10 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。

11 needlessly   

adv.不需要地，不必要地

参考例句：

• Thousands of children in the world today suffer needlessly. 当今世界有成千上万的儿童遭受着不必要的痛苦。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Yet they were built on stilts, quite needlessly. 半山上也用吊脚楼形式，这形式是必须的吗？ 来自汉英文学 - 散文英译