VOA慢速英语2017 世界卫生组织称发展中国家有10%药品是假药

WHO: 10 Percent of Drugs in Developing Countries Are Fake

The World Health Organization (WHO) says one of every 10 medicines sold in developing countries is either fake or of poor quality.

世卫组织表示，发展中国家所销售的药品中有近10%要么是假药，要么质量很差。

In a report this week, WHO officials said fake or substandard drugs are to blame for tens of thousands of children dying. These deaths could be easily prevented, officials said.

世卫组织官员在本周的一份报告中指出，假药或者劣质药是数以万计儿童死亡的元凶。官员们表示，这些死亡原本可以轻松避免。

Trying to understand the problem, experts looked at 100 studies, all of which were completed between 2007 and 2016. The studies examined use of more than 48,000 drugs.

为了弄清这个问题，有关专家查看了100项全部都在2007年到2016年期间完成的研究。这些研究调查了4.8万多种药物的使用情况。

The experts found that 10.5 percent of the drugs were not what they appeared to be.

专家们发现，这些药物有10.5%是假药。

Drugs for treating malaria 1 and bacterial 2 infections were responsible for nearly 65 percent of the fake medicines.

用于治疗疟疾和细菌感染的药物占到了假药的近65%。

A statement from WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was released with the report. He asked people to imagine a mother who uses her money for medicine instead of food and then sees her child die because the medicine was of poor quality or falsified.

这份报告还同时发表了世卫组织总干事特德罗斯·阿达诺姆·盖布雷耶苏斯（Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus）的一份声明。他让人们想象一下，一位母亲拿钱买药而不是买食物，然而因为这些药物质量很差或者是假药，眼睁睁地看着孩子死亡。

“This is unacceptable,” he said.

他说：“这是没法接受的。”

Poor countries spend about $300 billion a year for medications. WHO officials said that means the fake drug industry is worth of an estimated $30 billion.

贫穷国家每年在药物上花费大约3千亿美元。世卫组织官员表示，这意味着假药产业价值近300亿美元。

The London School of Hygiene 3 and Tropical Medicine estimates that 116,000 people die each year from fake anti-malaria medication in African countries south of the Sahara Desert.

伦敦卫生与热带医学院估计每年在撒哈拉以南非洲国家，有11.6万人死于假冒的抗疟疾药物。

In 2013, WHO officials launched a worldwide system for following fake and compromised drugs. It has received reports about nearly 1,500 problematic medicines, including drugs for the heart, diabetes 4, fertility, mental health and cancer. WHO also noted 5 problems with fake vaccines 6 for diseases such as yellow fever.

2013年，世卫组织官员启动了一个全球性的追踪假冒伪劣药品的系统。它已经收到了近1500种问题药物的报告，包括用于治疗心脏病、糖尿病、生育、精神健康和癌症的药物。世卫组织还指出了黄热病等疾病的假疫苗问题。

WHO believes the examples of fake medicine it found are only “a small fraction” of the real problem because many fake drugs are not reported.

世卫组织认为，它发现的假药案例只是冰山一角，因为很多假药都没有报道出来。

Officials credited the system with saving the lives of more than 20 children in Paraguay. Tests showed the children had swallowed a contaminated drug. The drug was in a cough medicine that had killed 60 people in Pakistan just a few months earlier.

官员们认为，这个系统在巴拉圭挽救了20多名儿童的性命。有关检测显示，这些儿童服用了一种受污染的药物。这是一种止咳药，几个月前在巴基斯坦导致了60多人死亡。

I’m Susan Shand.

Words in This Story

fake – adj. meant to trick someone into believing it to be real

hygiene – n. the things that you do to keep yourself and your surroundings clean in order to have good health

tropical – adj. relating to areas near Earth’s equator, where the weather is always warm

fraction – n. a percentage; a part of something

contaminated – adj. corrupted, infected or polluted by something