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1. NEWS LESSONS / Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists / Advanced
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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2010
Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists
Level 3 Advanced
Key words
1
If you _______________________ a problem such as a disease, you get rid of it completely.
1.
A _______________________ is something that causes a lot of trouble or harm.
2.
A _______________________ is an animal (or living organism) that lives in or on another type of animal and
3.
feeds on it.
An _______________________ is an illness or a disease.
4.
If you _______________________ a problem, you take action to try to stop it from happening or
5.
becoming worse.
If you _______________________ something, you prevent other people from using it.
6.
A _______________________ is a sign that someone has a particular illness.
7.
If you _______________________ information, you change it so that it is no longer true or accurate.
8.
A _______________________ is a large group of animals of the same type that live and move about together.
9.
A _______________________ is a sad, serious or difficult situation.
10.
ailment plight parasite symptom scourge
herd monopolize eradicate distort combat
Diseases
2
Fill the gaps in the sentences using these key words from the text.
Match the diseases with their definitions. Check your answers in the text.
trachoma a. a disease that can cause brain damage in children
1.
bilharzia b. a disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes
2.
elephantiasis c. an infectious eye disease
3.
sleeping sickness d. a severe thickening of the skin and tissues, especially in the legs
4.
malaria e. a disease transmitted by flies that can cause coma and death
5.

2. NEWS LESSONS / Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists / Advanced
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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2010
Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists
Level 3 Advanced
Focus on HIV prevents us from curing
a billion people, say scientists
Experts say governments treat ‘big name’
ailments like HIV and malaria when many which
kill far more people in the developing world could
be eradicated cheaply
Robin McKie
7 November, 2010
More than a billion victims of some of the world’s
most pernicious ailments could be treated with
drugs that have annual costs of less than 30p
per person. However, the plight of these people
is being neglected because resources are being
monopolized in developing countries by three
major conditions – HIV, malaria and TB – even
though these diseases infect a much smaller
fraction of their populations. This is the warning
of experts who say an opportunity to rid the
planet of some of its worst scourges – including
sleeping sickness, elephantiasis and river
blindness – is being missed because of distorted
health policy goals.
“This is not the fault of pharmaceutical
companies,” said Professor David Molyneux of
the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. “They
have made available billions of doses of key
drugs. Our problem is that we are not providing
the impetus or the means for getting these
drugs to disease sufferers. People at policy level
think that only malaria, TB and HIV exist in the
Third World. This is not true. Neglected tropical
diseases as a whole – like sleeping sickness or
bilharzia – cause more of a burden than these
big-name diseases but are being ignored.”
Many of these diseases, such as river blindness
and elephantiasis (a thickening of the skin and
tissues, especially in the legs), do not kill outright
but leave victims unable to fend for themselves.
Others result in death, but only if left untreated
for long periods. The health problems posed
by these conditions will be highlighted at an
international conference in Geneva. It will focus
on neglected zoonotic diseases – ailments that
are transmitted from animals. These include
sleeping sickness, a parasitic disease spread
by tsetse flies to humans from infected cattle.
Symptoms include fever and headaches that can
lead to coma and death if not treated.
“If you do not try to control sleeping sickness you
can end up with horrendous epidemics,” said
Professor Sue Welburn of Edinburgh University,
who has been working on the condition in
Uganda. “However, its symptoms are often
confused with malaria. Victims are then given
the wrong drugs. When those don’t work, it is
assumed they have HIV and they are sent home
to die.”
Scientists have recently found a cheaper way to
deal with sleeping sickness: tackling the animals
that act as reservoirs for the disease parasite.
“Animals are quite tolerant of the parasite, which
exists in several different types,” said Welburn.
“Only one type of parasite can infect humans,
however, and recently we have developed a
blood test to detect it in cattle. It takes only a few
hours to spot infected animals.”
Once an infected herd is identified it can be
treated with a drug that kills the parasite and
costs 30p per animal. Reservoirs of sleeping
sickness parasites can be eradicated. “So far we
have treated half a million cattle in Uganda and
have halted the spread of sleeping sickness,”
said Welburn, head of Edinburgh University’s
Global Health Academy, which tackles
neglected diseases.
Setting up the necessary infrastructure, by
combining medical and veterinary services, is
proving difficult and is typical of the problems
of trying to tackle neglected tropical diseases.
Other ailments, which in total affect hundreds
of millions but which could be tackled cheaply
and speedily, include bilharzia and trachoma.
Bilharzia is caused by a waterborne parasite and
can cause brain damage in children. Trachoma
is the world’s leading cause of infectious
blindness and a major source of poverty.
Most major pharmaceutical companies have
pledged to provide, at no cost, billions of doses
of the drugs needed to combat these diseases.
But many G8 governments have failed to provide
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3. NEWS LESSONS / Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists / Advanced
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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2010
Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists
Level 3 Advanced
Comprehension check
3
Choose the best answer according to the text
Why are diseases such as sleeping sickness, elephantiasis and river blindness still common?
1.
because drug companies have not yet found a treatment for these diseases
a.
because resources are directed to the treatment of other diseases
b.
because it is much too expensive to treat diseases like these
c.
What are zoonotic diseases?
2.
diseases only found in animals
a.
diseases transmitted from animals to humans
b.
diseases commonly found in zoo animals
c.
What is the cheapest way to deal with sleeping sickness?
3.
to give victims drugs intended to treat malaria
a.
to treat the animals that carry the parasite that causes the disease
b.
to give victims a special blood test
c.
Why have the necessary drugs not been given to the poor who need them?
4.
because G8 governments have not yet provided a way to get the drugs to the people who need them
a.
because it is too difficult and expensive to deliver the drugs to infected areas
b.
because there are too many other things to do in international health
c.
the means or impetus to get those drugs to the
people who need them, a failure which Molyneux
says is a major one.”If we can’t deliver free
drugs to poor people, I don’t think there is much
else we can do in international health,” he said.
© Guardian News & Media 2010
First published in The Observer, 07/11/10
Find the word
4
Find the following words and phrases and the text.
an adjective meaning
1. very dangerous or harmful (para 1)
a noun meaning
2. a force that helps something to happen or develop more quickly (para 2)
an adverb meaning
3. completely or at one time in a single process (para 3)
a three-word verb meaning
4. look after yourself without help from anyone else (para 3)
a two-word noun meaning
5. an insect that spreads sleeping sickness (para 3)
an adjective meaning
6. extremely bad or shocking (para 4)
a two-word phrasal verb meaning
7. to organize or plan a system (para 7)
a verb used mainly in journalism meaning
8. to promise seriously and publicly to do something (para 8)

4. NEWS LESSONS / Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists / Advanced
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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2010
Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists
Level 3 Advanced
Word-building
6
Complete the sentences using the correct form of the word in brackets at the end of each sentence.
Discussion
7
Should resources be diverted from tackling HIV, malaria and TB to tropical diseases which cause poverty
in developing countries? Why? Why not?
Verb + noun collocations
5
Match the verbs in the left-hand column with the nouns and noun phrases in the right-hand column.
eradicate
1.
miss
2.
set up
3.
monopolize
4.
pose
5.
develop
6.
resources
a.
an infrastructure
b.
an opportunity
c.
a new test
d.
a disease
e.
a problem
f.
Many tropical diseases can result in death if left ________________________ for long periods. [TREAT]
1.
Trachoma is a major cause of ________________________ in developing countries. [POOR]
2.
Certain diseases could be treated cheaply and ________________________. [SPEED]
3.
Sleeping sickness is a ________________________ disease. [PARASITE]
4.
Some animals are quite ________________________ of the sleeping sickness parasite. [TOLERATE]
5.

5. NEWS LESSONS / Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists / Advanced
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© Macmillan Publishers Ltd 2010
Focus on HIV prevents us from curing a billion people, say scientists
Level 3 Advanced
1 Key words
eradicate
1.
scourge
2.
parasite
3.
ailment
4.
combat
5.
monopolize
6.
symptom
7.
distort
8.
herd
9.
plight
10.
2 Diseases
c
1.
a
2.
d
3.
e
4.
b
5.
3 Comprehension check
b
1.
b
2.
b
3.
a
4.
4 Find the word
pernicious
1.
impetus
2.
outright
3.
fend for yourself
4.
tsetse fly
5.
horrendous
6.
set up
7.
pledge
8.
5 Verb + noun collocations
e
1.
c
2.
b
3.
a
4.
f
5.
d
6.
6 Word-building
untreated
1.
poverty
2.
speedily
3.
parasitic
4.
tolerant
5.
KEY