专家呼吁加大贫困国家对抗癌症力度

    Health experts are calling for action to expand cancer care and control in the developing world. A paper published by the medical journal Lancet says cancer was once thought of mostly as a problem in the developed world. But it says cancer is now a leading cause of death and disability in poor countries.
    健康专家呼吁采取行动,加强发展中国家的癌症治疗和控制。发表在医学杂志柳叶刀(Lancet)上的一篇论文表示,人们曾经认为癌症通常发生在发达国家,但是现在,癌症已经成为贫困国家造成死亡和残疾的元凶。

    Experts from Harvard University and other organizations urge the international community to fight cancer aggressively. They say it should be fought the way HIV/AIDS has been fought in Africa.
    来自哈佛大学和其他机构的专家号召国际社会积极对抗癌症。他们说,就应该像非洲对抗艾滋一样对抗癌症。

    Cancer kills more than seven and a half million people a year worldwide. The experts say almost two-thirds are in low-income and middle-income countries.
    癌症每年造成全球超过750万人死亡。专家们表示,这其中接近2/3来自中低收入国家。

    They say cancer kills more people in developing countries than AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined. But they say the world spends only five percent of its cancer resources in those countries.
    他们表示,在发展中国家,癌症致死人数比艾滋病、结核病和疟疾三者加起来还多。但是,这些国家在癌症治疗上耗费的资源只占到全球的5%。

    Felicia Knaul from the Harvard Medical School was one of the authors of the paper. She was in Mexico when she was found to have breast cancer. She received treatment there. She says the experience showed her the sharp divide between the rich and the poor in treating breast cancer.
    来自哈佛医学院的弗雷西亚·科诺尔(Felicia Knaul)是该论文的作者之一。她在墨西哥时被检查出患有乳腺癌,并在那里接受了治疗。她说,这次经历让她看到了贫富国家在治疗乳腺癌上的巨大差距。

    FELICIA KNAUL: "And we are seeing more and more how this is attacking young women. It's the number two cause of death in Mexico for women thirty to fifty-four. All over the developing world, except the poorest-poorest, it's the number one cancer-related death among young women. And, I think we have to again say that there is much more we could do about it than we are doing about it.
    科诺尔:“我们看到越来越多的年轻女性受到乳腺癌的冲击。这是墨西哥30到54岁女性的第二大死因。在所有发展中国家,除了那些极度贫穷的国家,乳腺癌在导致年轻女性死亡的癌症中排在首位。因此,我认为我们必须再次强调,与现在我们正在做的相比,我们能做的更多。”

    Professor Knaul met community health workers during her work in developing countries. She says they were an important part of efforts to reduce deaths from cervical cancer. They were able to persuade women to get tested and to get vaccinated against a virus that can cause it.
    科诺尔教授在发展中国家工作期间见到了社区卫生工作者。她说,他们是减少宫颈癌死亡这项工作中的重要环节。他们能够说服妇女做检查并注射疫苗。

    The experts say cancer care does not have to be costly. For example, patients can be treated with lower-cost drugs that are off-patent. This means the drugs are no longer legally protected against being copied.
    专家表示,癌症治疗并不一定代价昂贵。例如,患者可以使用成本较低的专利已过期的药物进行治疗。专利已过期意味着复制这些药物不再被法律禁止。

    In another new report, the American Cancer Society says cancer has the highest economic cost of any cause of death. It caused an estimated nine hundred billion dollars in economic losses worldwide in two thousand eight.
    在另一项新的报告中,美国癌症协会(American Cancer Society)指出,在所有死因中癌症付出的经济代价最高。2008年全球范围内,癌症造成的经济损失约9000亿美元。

    That was one and a half percent of the world economy, and just losses from early death and disability. The study did not estimate direct medical costs. But it says the productivity losses are almost twenty percent higher than for the second leading cause of economic loss, heart disease.
    这占了世界经济总额的1.5%,而这仅仅是早逝和残疾的损失。这项研究并没有评估直接医疗成本,但它表示,与排在经济损失第2位的心脏病相比,癌症造成的生产力损失高出了20%。