VOA慢速英语 2007 0924a

This is the VOA Special English Development Report.   

UNICEF says a record low number of children are dying before the age of five. The United Nations Children's Fund has records back to nineteen sixty. It says the number has dropped below ten million a year for the first time.

By comparison, there were almost thirteen million deaths in nineteen ninety.

The newest report says nine million seven hundred thousand children under five died last year. Almost half were in southern Africa. Just over three million were in South Asia.

UNICEF Executive Director Ann Veneman called the new findings historic but still unacceptable. She says most of the deaths are preventable.

 
A child receives a shot of measles¹ vaccine² in Banyusoco village, Indonesia
UNICEF says much of the progress is the result of increased efforts for early health interventions³. One example is feeding babies only breast milk for the first six months. Also, vaccinating⁴ children against measles has saved many lives. So has the use of vitamin A to strengthen children's immune systems, and chemically treated bed nets to prevent malaria⁵.

Morocco, Vietnam and the Dominican Republic have reduced child deaths by more than one-third since nineteen ninety-nine. Madagascar has cut its rate by forty-one percent; Sao Tome and Principe by nearly half.

UNICEF says progress in Asia, especially in China and India, has helped drive the worldwide reduction since nineteen ninety. Death rates have dropped sharply in Latin America and the Caribbean, former Soviet⁶ republics and countries in East Asia and the Pacific. 

Some countries in sub-Saharan Africa have also made considerable gains. Malawi’s under-five death rate dropped by twenty-nine percent between two thousand and two thousand four. Reductions of more than twenty percent were reported in Ethiopia, Mozambique, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda and Tanzania as well.

In nineteen ninety, Asia had the most child deaths. Now, rates are highest in west and central Africa. Gains in child survival have fallen to the spread of H.I.V and AIDS. By two thousand fifteen, Africa south of the Sahara could have almost sixty percent of all deaths in children under five.

But UNICEF says Latin America and the Caribbean are on a path to reach a U.N. Millennium⁷ Development Goal. The goal is to reduce the death rate in children under five by two-thirds from nineteen ninety levels -- and to do that by two thousand fifteen.

And that's the VOA Special English Development Report, written by Jill Moss⁸. I’m Steve Ember.

1 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

2 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

3 interventions   

n.介入，干涉，干预( intervention的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Economic analysis of government interventions deserves detailed discussion. 政府对经济的干预应该给予充分的论述。 来自辞典例句
• The judge's frequent interventions made a mockery of justice. 法官的屡屡干预是对正义的践踏。 来自互联网

4 vaccinating   

给…接种疫苗( vaccinate的现在分词 )； 注射疫苗，接种疫苗

参考例句：

• At first blush, vaccinating the wolves against rabies seems a simple solution. 乍一看来，为狼群注射防狂犬病疫苗是一种简单的办法。
• Also vaccinating children against misers (measles) has saved many lives. 还有，给儿童进行疫苗接种防止麻疹也挽救了许多生命。

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 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

7 millennium   

n.一千年，千禧年；太平盛世

参考例句：

• The whole world was counting down to the new millennium.全世界都在倒计时迎接新千年的到来。
• We waited as the clock ticked away the last few seconds of the old millennium.我们静候着时钟滴答走过千年的最后几秒钟。

8 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。