看比尔盖茨如何写2014年终总结

I ended 2013 by compiling something slightly unusual: a list of some of the good news you might have missed. I thought it was a pretty good note to end the year on, and people seemed to like reading about some of the ways the world is becoming a better place. This year, I thought I’d do it again

2013年我编辑了一些有点不同寻常的东西来作为年终总结：一张你可能错过了的好消息清单。我觉得作为年终总结，这是一份相当不错的笔记，而且人们似乎喜欢读一些世界在哪些方面变得更好的故事。今年，我想我又要这么干了。

Of course, we can’t ignore the fact that it’s been a turbulent year, in the United States and many other countries. But it’s worth taking a moment to celebrate some of the good news too. More children are surviving than ever before. We’re making progress against some of the world’s deadliest diseases. These are some of the most fundamental ways to measure the world’s progress—and by that measure, 2014 was definitely another good year.

当然了，在美国和其他很多国家，我们不能忽略这是充满骚乱动荡不安的一年。但是花点时间为些好消息庆祝也是很值的。同从前相比，更多的孩子存活了下来。和世界上的一些致命的疾病作斗争，我们正在进步。这些是衡量世界进步的最根本的方法——而且通过以下的估量，2014绝对又是让人欢喜的一年。

1.More Fifth Birthdays Than Ever Before

和从前相比，更多孩子过上了5岁的生日。

To me, one of the best ways to measure progress is to look at how many children are dying of preventable causes.

对我而言，衡量进步最好的方法之一就是看看，有多少孩子的死亡可以避免。

And today, more kids are living to see their fifth birthday than ever before. This year, for at least the 42nd year in a row, the child mortality rate has fallen. And it’s not just moving in the right direction—it’s falling faster than anyone expected.

同过去相比的今天，更多的孩子活着过上了5岁的生日。在今年，至少是连续第42年儿童的死亡率有所下降。而且不仅仅是朝正确的方向——它比任何人期望的都下降的快。

The Economist ran a great article about this in September, where it estimated that just since 2001, the world has saved 13.6 million children’s lives. It’s hard to think of a better sign the world is improving.

《经济学人》在9月写了一篇关于这个问题的长文，自从2001年开始，预计全世界已拯救了1360万儿童的生命。不难想象，这就是世界正在变好的标志。

2.We Hit a Big Milestone in Fighting AIDS

我们在对抗艾滋病上取得了里程碑式的进步

The world has done an impressive job of providing treatment to people living with HIV. But for years we were falling behind, because for all the people who started getting treatment, even more would become infected.

对于艾滋病病毒感染者的治疗，全世界已经取得了令人钦佩的进步。但是这些年来，我们一直很落后，因为算上所有开始接受治疗的人，也及不上更多的人受感染的速率。

Not anymore, though. New data released this month show that 2013 was the first year when more people started getting treatment than became infected with HIV. Why does that matter? Because treating people not only keeps them alive, it also dramatically reduces the odds that they will pass the virus on to anyone else. As the epidemiologists say, we can start to bend the curve of the disease.

今非昔比。这个月的新数据显示，2013年是第一年接受治疗的人比感染艾滋病病毒的人多了。这为何显得意义非凡？因为病人的治疗不仅仅是延续他们的生命，还急剧减少了将病毒传染给别人的几率。正如流行病专家所说的那样，这是一个转折点。

We still have a long way to go before we can declare the end of AIDS, but this is a big milestone.

在能宣告艾滋病已经无所可畏之前，我们还有很长的路要走，但是这确实是里程碑式的一步。

3.Rotavirus Vaccine is Reaching More Kids Than Ever

比起以往更多的孩子接受了轮状病毒疫苗接种

When I read an article in the late 1990s that mentioned a diarrheal disease called rotavirus killed hundreds of thousands of kids a year, I couldn’t believe something I’d never even heard of was killing that many children.

当我在20世纪90年代阅读一篇提到名为轮状病毒引发的腹泻病，一年里能导致成千上万的儿童死亡，我不敢相信这种我从来没听过的病毒杀死了那么多孩子。

But rotavirus doesn’t get much press because it’s almost never deadly in rich countries—and the world tends to ignore diseases that only affect the world’s poorest people.

但是轮状病毒没受多大重视，因为在发达国家几乎从不会致死——所以全世界都倾向对这个只影响贫穷国家人民的疾病视而不见。

In many ways, rotavirus was a catalyst for my commitment to global health—in fact, one of our foundation’s first grants supported efforts against rotavirus. Since then, the number of kids dying from this illness has been cut nearly in half thanks to a cheap and effective vaccine. And today, that vaccine is reaching more kids than ever before.

从很多方面来看，轮状病毒是我致力委身于全球健康的催化剂——事实上，我们基金会的第一笔补助就是帮助对抗轮状病毒。从那以后，多亏了廉价又高效的疫苗，死于这种疾病的儿童就减少了近乎一半。同过去相比的今天，更多孩子接受了疫苗接种。

For example in India, where rota kills nearly 80,000 children a year, the government decided this year to deliver the vaccine for free to poor children. And manufacturers there are working on a more affordable vaccine that could reach even more children in the coming years.

举个例子，在印度，该病毒一年杀死了几乎8万儿童，政府决定在今年为贫穷的孩子发放免费疫苗。而那里的厂家致力于生产更多价格实惠的疫苗，以便让更多孩子在接下来的几年里负担的起这种疫苗接种。

4.A Tuberculosis Breakthrough—Finally

肺结核终于有了突破性进展

The world is way overdue for a better tuberculosis treatment.

全世界在更好的治疗肺结核上所做的已经远远超出预期。

TB is one of the world’s leading causes of death, and our existing treatments are inadequate—especially for drug resistant forms of the disease. But efforts to improve them have been stalled for decades. So it’s a big deal that earlier this year, scientists announced that a new TB treatment regimen has proven effective in early-phase research.

肺结核是全世界第一大致死疾病。而我们现有的治疗十分匮乏——尤其是该疾病的耐药性上。但是几十年来改进的努力一直止步不前。所以今年早些时候，科学家宣布一种新型肺结核治疗方案在早期研究方案中被证明有效，成为了大事件。

From here, the drug regimen goes on to a large clinical trial to confirm the results. If this new treatment regimen pans out, it could dramatically reduce the time it takes to cure drug-resistant TB and save poor countries billions of dollars in health-care costs.

从现在开始，用药法将继续大型临床试验区来证明这个结论。如果这种新型治疗方法成功了，它就能迅速减少治疗肺结核耐药性的时间，并且为贫穷国家的卫生保健开支省下一大笔。

5.Nigeria’s Fight Against Polio Helped Its Fight Against Ebola

尼日利亚对抗小儿麻痹症的经验帮助了其对抗埃博拉

A lot of the media coverage about Nigeria this year focused on two things: Ebola and terrorism.

很多媒体报道了今年尼日利亚专注的两件事情：埃博拉和恐怖主义。

Both are frightening, and they masked the fact that from a global health perspective, Nigeria actually had a pretty good year. Although it’s one of only three countries that have never been free from polio (Pakistan and Afghanistan are the other two), I don’t think it will be on that list for long.

但是这两件恐怖的事从全球健康的角度掩盖了一个事实：尼日利亚实际上度过了很棒的一年。虽然它是全世界仅有的三个还在遭受小儿麻痹症的国家（还有两个是巴基斯坦和阿富汗），我认为他们很长时间不会上榜了。

Nigeria has reported only six cases of polio this year, compared to more than 50 last year. What’s more, the infrastructure Nigeria has built to fight polio actually made it easier for them to swiftly contain Ebola. The fact that Nigeria is now Ebola free is a great example of how doing the work to fight things like fighting polio also leaves countries better prepared to deal with outbreaks of other diseases.

尼日利亚今年据报道只有6例小儿麻痹症，而去年有50多个病例。而且，尼日利亚建的用于对抗小儿麻痹症的基础设施，实际上让他们对抗埃博拉的工作更容易了。尼日利亚如今不再遭受埃博拉侵袭，就是一个很好的例子：像对抗小儿麻痹症这样疾病的经验也能让国家更好的准备其他疾病暴发时的应对。

6.Looking Ahead

展望未来

One more thing: this January, Melinda and I will publish our annual letter. This year, we’re looking ahead to 2030. We’ll be writing about a few areas—from health to farming and banking—where life will really change, especially for people in some of the world’s poorest places.

还有一件事：今年1月，梅琳达和我将会出版我们每一年的信件。今年，我们展望至2030年。我们书写着尤其是世界上最贫穷地方人们的生活，在一些领域——从健康到农业到银行——生活的改变。