Words in the News Wednesday 30 October 2002 Vocabulary from the news. Listen to and read the report then find explanations of difficult words below.
Rural China health plan Summary: China has announced an ambitious plan to improve the health of its huge rural population. The plan will try to prevent children catching common diseases. It will also try to stop the return of tuberculosis and the growing threat of AIDS. This report by Rupert Wingfield-Hayes.
These are impressive targets. By 2010 more than ninety percent of China's rural children will be inoculated against common diseases. Ninety-five percent of counties will have anti-tuberculosis programmes and three-quarters of rural townships will provide treatment for AIDS patients.
But this plan is also a glaring admission of just how bad the health care situation in rural China has become. It was never good but since the break-up of the communes twenty years ago, China's rural health system has all but collapsed.
Chinese peasants must now pay to see a doctor, if they can find one, but few have the money. Tuberculosis is once more on the rise and AIDS is taking hold across a huge swathe of central China. It's being spread by blood selling - a common way for poor farmers to earn extra cash. Perhaps a million have already been infected with HIV.
The new plan promises appropriate health care for AIDS patients. It's certainly a noble goal but the reality today is that tens of thousands of AIDS patients in rural China have no access to the expensive drugs needed to control the disease and are simply being left to die.
