IN THE NEWS - World AIDS Day

IN THE NEWS – November 30, 2002: World AIDS Day

By Caty Weaver¹

This is Steve Ember with the VOA Special English program, IN THE NEWS.

Sunday is World AIDS Day. World AIDS Day was first declared at a conference in
nineteen-eighty-eight. Each year, the observance gives governments, other
organizations and individuals a chance to show the importance of the fight against
AIDS. It also is a day to celebrate progress in efforts to stop the spread of the
disease².

The message for World AIDS Day this year is, “Live and Let Live.” Peter Piot is
the head of the United Nations AIDS program. He says the world AIDS campaign
for the next year is about the way people infected with the AIDS virus are treated.
He says those infected can be treated unfairly in schools, workplaces, and religious
centers. He is urging every one to fight this unfair treatment wherever it is found. He
says that would help clear the way to progress in fighting AIDS itself.

This week, U-N officials reported that about half of those infected worldwide are women. Until now, more men
were infected. The U-N’s new report estimates³ that forty-two-million people are infected with the AIDS virus,
also called H-I-V. Nearly thirty-nine-million of those infected are adults. More than nineteen-million of them are
women. Last year, more than four-million adults became infected. Two-million of them are women.

U-N officials say many women were infected through sex with infected men. Studies have found that H-I-V
passes more easily from men to women than from women to men.

The main reason for the rise in infected women is the AIDS crisis⁴ in southern Africa. There, fifty-eight percent of
infected adults are women. The report says this is one cause for the drop in agricultural production in several
African countries. In parts of Africa, women do much of the work on family farms.

U-N officials say more than fourteen-million people are at risk of starving in six African countries. They are
Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, Swaziland, Zambia and Zimbabwe. More than five-million of the twenty-sixmillion adults in those countries are infected.

U-N officials also report rising infection rates among women in North Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean
Sea area. The report shows that Eastern Europe and Central Asia have the world’s fastest growing population of
H-I-V carriers⁵. This year, there were about two-hundred-fifty-thousand new infections in Eastern Europe and
Central Asia. That represents about twenty percent of all infections there.

In Asia and the Pacific Ocean area, more than seven-million people now have H-I-V. More than one-million
people in China are infected. In India, almost four-million people have the AIDS virus.

The United Nations estimates that at least ten-thousand-five-hundred-million dollars is required for AIDS
programs in much of the world by two-thousand-five. That compares with current spending of three-thousandmillion dollars a year.

This VOA Special English program, IN THE NEWS, was written by Caty Weaver. This is Steve Ember.

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1 weaver   

n.织布工；编织者

参考例句：

• She was a fast weaver and the cloth was very good.她织布织得很快，而且布的质量很好。
• The eager weaver did not notice my confusion.热心的纺织工人没有注意到我的狼狈相。

2 disease   

n.疾病，弊端

参考例句：

• The doctors are trying to stamp out the disease.医生正在尽力消灭这种疾病。
• He fought against the disease for a long time.他同疾病做了长时间的斗争。

3 estimates   

估计

参考例句：

• Unofficial estimates put the figure at over two million. 非官方的估计数字为200万以上。
• We got estimates from three different contractors before accepting the lowest. 我们得到3个承包商的报价后，接受了最低的报价。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 crisis   

n.危机，危急关头，决定性时刻，关键阶段

参考例句：

• He had proved that he could be relied on in a crisis.他已表明，在紧要关头他是可以信赖的。
• The topic today centers about the crisis in the Middle East.今天课题的中心是中东危机。

5 carriers   

（自身不受感染而传播疾病的）带菌者( carrier的名词复数 )； （尤指经营空运的）运输公司； 搬运人； 军输车

参考例句：

• Mosquitoes are carriers of disease. 蚊子是疾病的传播媒介。
• The chair carriers arrived at the crack of dawn. 轿是一早就到了。