环球英语 — 55：Lymphatic Filariasis, a worm disease

　　Voice 1

Thank you for joining us today for Spotlight 1. I’m Rebekah Schipper

Voice 2

And I’m Joshua Leo. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live.

Voice 1

Antoinette St. Fab sells rice and oil in a market in Haiti. She is thirty [30] years old. She works very hard in the busy market. But Antoinette has a problem. Her legs are swollen 2. Fluid fills them. They are very large. Her left leg is almost thirty [30] centimetres thick. She has trouble finding shoes to fit her feet. And she has to cut her clothing to fit over her legs. This helps her to walk more easily. Antoinette has Lymphatic Filariasis. Antoinette says:

Voice 3

“In the past, I used to carry (food) like spaghetti and canned milk on my head and walk around selling them. But I can not do that any more.”

Voice 2

Antoinette used to experience fevers and infections in her legs. She has prevented this by washing her legs often She also puts medicine on them. But her legs often still hurt. And they continue to make her life difficult. When Antoinette’s husband learned that her legs would not become smaller, he left her. She worries that her new boyfriend will also leave her. The other women at the market insult her.

Voice 3

“I stepped on someone’s foot by accident, and she said. ‘Hey yam leg, do not put your fat foot on me.’ I told her: ‘Oh, be quiet. God gave me this leg. Do you think that if I went to the store to buy a leg, this is the one I would choose?’”

Voice 1

Antoinette asked doctors to cut off her leg. But the doctors would not do it. They said that having a large leg is better than having no leg. They said that if they cut off her leg, other parts of her body could become large and swollen.

Voice 2

This is a common problem among people in very poor countries. Mosquitos, insects that drink blood, spread the disease. The mosquitos carry young worms, a long, thin organism, in their bodies. These long thin organisms enter a person’s body when the mosquito bites him. One worm in a person’s body does not do damage. But when many worms enter a person’s body, then problems begin.

Voice 1

Male and female worms mate inside a person’s body. The female worm releases many larvae 3, or baby worms, into a person’s lymphatic system. The lymphatic system is part of the immune 4 system. It helps a person to fight sickness. The lymphatic system is made up of two main parts: the vessels 5 and nodes. The vessels are tubes that spread through a person’s body. The nodes are like little balls connected to the vessels. When the baby worms enter the lymphatic system, it becomes infected. The worms cause these areas to fill up with fluid. The name Lymphatic Filariasis comes from these two parts. Lymphatic means the lymphatic system. Filariasis comes from the word filaria. This is the scientific word for worms.

Voice 2

Over one hundred twenty million [120,000,000] people in eighty [80] countries suffer from Lymphatic Filariasis. The disease affects people in different ways. Some people’s legs grow large like Antoinette’s leg. But more often, the disease affects men’s sexual 6 organs. Many people are not comfortable talking about how the disease affects men. Some men lie about their problem. They do not want to admit that they have a disease.

Voice 1

Many men with Lymphatic Filariasis have enlarged scrotums. Sometimes a scrotum, a part of the male sexual organ, grows past a man’s knees. This swelling 7 is called a hydrocele. It can be very painful. It can make walking difficult. But many men feel shame when they have this problem. They do not talk about it. They do not seek help from a doctor. If a man does not accept that he has a disease, he will never get help.

Voice 2

Doctors can operate on men to make the hydrocele smaller. But swollen legs cannot be made smaller. Filariasis can not be cured. The worms are too strong. They live too deep in the body. Doctors cannot remove them with surgery. Medicine today is aimed at killing 8 the baby worms in a person’s body. The medicine prevents more worms from growing.

Voice 1

But the medicine does not fix the problem fast. The medicine cannot kill the adult worms living in a person’s body. A person with filariasis must wait for the adult worm inside her to die. This may last six years! And making sure that everyone in a community takes their medicine can be difficult. Medicine also costs a lot of money. Most people in these poor villages cannot buy it.

Voice 2

One way that people receive medicine is by using salt. The World Health Organization has given money to start a salt program in Haiti. Fifty [50] people in Haiti buy local sea salt. They remove rocks and wood from the salt. Then they wash it. After that, they put liquid medicine on it. They put the salt into containers. They sell it to local people. It costs twenty-six [26] cents to make one container of salt. But the people must sell the salt for ten [10] cents to compete with normal salt prices. Local people use this salt in their homes. But they also receive the medicine. This will prevent Filariasis from spreading in Haiti.

Voice 1

The salt treatment has worked in other countries around the world. China began to use the salt method in the nineteen seventies [1970’s]. China stopped the disease by ordering people in villages to use this kind of salt. China stopped Filariasis because the Chinese government supported the fight against the disease.

Voice 2

The World Health Organization has made a goal to stop this disease by the year 2020. It will give medicine to the people in the villages. The World Health Organization teams want to prevent people from becoming infected by the worms. But they will also teach people who already have the disease. The teams will teach them ways to fight infection and reduce swelling. This treatment is already helping 9 many people like Antoinette. The World Health Organization hopes that soon Lyphatic Filariasis will no longer exist.