英语六级听力练习：标准4.5(8)_大学英语听力

英语六级听力练习：标准4.5(8)

　　Elsewhere in Africa, the Carter Center has shifted its focus from controlling river blindness - another parasitic infection - to eliminating it.

　　While river blindness cant be eradicated like Guinea worm, the Carter Center discovered that by modifying the dosage of the antibiotic ivermectin, the disease could be eliminated in the human body.

　　If we gave two to four pills a year, then the adult worms that created the microfilaria would be eliminated. We found that out in Latin America, in six countries, we could completely do away with river blindness permanently. Now weve tried that in Africa and found it to be successful again, said Carter.

　　The World Health Organization reports about 18 million people worldwide suffer from river blindness, 99 percent of them in Africa.

　　It can be so itchy that these patients can itch their skin so much that part of their skin goes white. And then theres a huge stigma still in some parts of Africa associating some parts of skin going white with leprosy, said Dr. Aisha Sethi, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the University of Chicago Medical Center. She said river blindness, which is the second leading cause of preventable blindness by infection, hurts both people and the economy.

　　You see the more people that are poor, and are sick, you are losing the working capacity of that country. You are losing money that families are making towards treatment of that person, she said.