Venezuela fears malaria more than Covid

 

比起冠狀病毒病 委內瑞拉人更怕得瘧疾

【摘要2021.5.17.自由】◎陳成良

Venezuela was the first country to eradicate malaria in 1961 － but the disease, carried by the Anopheles mosquito, has seen an alarming explosion over the last decade.

委內瑞拉在1961年領先全球根除瘧疾，但在過去10年，這種由瘧蚊帶原的疾病疫情爆炸性地反撲，令人擔憂。

"Many people have come down with malaria in the last two months. Some people have had it 15 to 20 times," said Leonardo Vargas, a communal anti-malaria activist.

社區防治瘧疾人士瓦爾加斯說：「過去2個月有好多人得到瘧疾，有些人還得過15到20次。」

The government has not published figures on malaria since 2016, but according to the Venezuelan Society of Public Health NGO － using 2018-2020 World Health Organization data － the country has the highest number of malaria cases in the region.

委國政府自2016年以來便未公布瘧疾病例數，但非政府組織「委內瑞拉公共衛生協會」援引世界衛生組織2018年至2020年的資料指出，委國瘧疾病例數高居該區域之冠。

In 2019 there were 400,000 cases of malaria in Venezuela, or more than half of the combined malaria cases of Brazil, Peru and Colombia, the NGO said.

這個非政府組織表示，2019年委內瑞拉有40萬人染病，是巴西、秘魯與哥倫比亞加總病例數的一半以上。

新聞辭典

eradicate：動詞，根除；消滅；杜絕。例句：The government claims to be doing all it can to eradicate corruption.（政府聲稱正盡其所能根治腐敗。）

come down with： 片語，患上，染上（尤指小病）。例句：I think I’m coming down with flu.（我想我染上流感了。）

NGO：非政府組織，為non-governmental organization的縮寫，是不屬於任何政府、不由任何國家建立的組織，通常獨立於國家政府。