VOA慢速英语:Fewer Children Under the Age of Five are Dying

In recent years, the world has made progress in reducing deaths among children under the age of five. A new report says an estimated six-point-nine million children worldwide died before their fifth birthday. That compares to about twelve million in nineteen ninety.
最近几年，全世界在减少5岁以下儿童死亡方面取得了进步。一份最新报道称全世界估计有690万名儿童在5岁前死亡，1990s时候的数据大约为1200万。

The report says child mortality rates have fallen in all areas. It says the number of deaths is down by at least fifty percent in eastern, western and southeastern Asia. The number also fell in North Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean.
报告称各地区的儿童死亡率都在下降，亚洲东部、西部和东南部的死亡人数下降了至少50%。北非、拉美和加勒比的数字也有所下降。

The World Bank and three United Nations agencies worked together on the report. The three are the U.N. Children’s Fund, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Population Division.
世界银行和三个联合国机构联合发布了这份报告，这三个机构是联合国儿童基金会、世界卫生组织和联合国人口司。

Ties Boerma is head of the WHO’s Department of Health Statistics and Informatics. He says most child deaths happen in just a few areas.
Ties Boerma是世界卫生组织卫生统计和信息部主任，他说大部分儿童死亡发生在少数地区。

TIES BOERMA: “Sub-Saharan Africa and southern Asia face the greatest challenges in child survival. More than eighty percent of child deaths in the world occur in these two regions. About half of child deaths occur in just five countries -- India, which actually takes twenty-four percent of the global total; Nigeria, eleven percent; the Democratic Republic of Congo, seven percent; Pakistan, five percent and China, four percent of under-five deaths in the world.”
TIES BOERMA：“撒哈拉以南非洲和南亚在儿童生存方面面临的挑战最大，全世界死亡的5岁以下儿童中有超过80%的就在这两个地区。近一半的死亡发生在五个国家：印度，占总死亡数的24%；尼日利亚，占11%；刚果民主共和国，7%；巴基斯坦，5%；中国，4%。”

Ties Boerma notes that, in developed countries, one child in one hundred fifty-two dies before his or her fifth birthday. But south of the Sahara Desert, one out of nine children dies before the age of five. In Asia, the mortality rate is one in sixteen. 
Ties Boerma指出，在发达国家，每152名儿童中有一名死于5岁以下。但撒哈拉以南沙漠地区每9名儿童就有一名死于5岁以下。在亚洲，死亡率是1/16。

The report lists the top five causes of death among children under five worldwide. They are pneumonia, diarrhea, malaria and problems both before and during birth.
报告列出了全世界导致5岁以下儿童死亡的五大原因，即肺炎、痢疾、疟疾和出生前、出生时的问题。

Tessa Wardlaw is with the U-N Children’s Fund. She is pleased with the progress being made in Sub-Saharan Africa. The area has the highest under-five mortality rate in the world. But she says the rate of decline in child deaths has more than doubled in Africa.
Tessa Wardlaw就职于联合国儿童基金，她很高兴看到撒哈拉以南非洲取得了进步。该地区5岁以下儿童死亡率是全世界最高的，但她说，非洲儿童死亡下降率已经翻倍。

TESSA WARDLAW: “We welcome the widespread progress in child survival, but we importantly want to stress that there’s a lot of work that remains to be done. There’s unfinished business and the fact is that today on average, around nineteen thousand children are still dying every day from largely preventable causes.”
Tessa Wardlaw：“我们乐意看到全世界儿童生存方面取得的进展，但我们想强调的重要一点是，还有很多工作要做。这是一项未竟的事业，事实是，现在全世界平均每天有1.9万名儿童死去，而这原本是可以预防的。”

The World Health Organization says one way to solve these problems is to make sure health care services are available to women. In this way, medical problems can be avoided or treated when identified.
世界卫生组织称解决这些问题的一个办法就是确保妇女能得到医疗服务，这样，一旦发现就可避免或治疗这些医疗问题。

We have placed a link to the report on our website.
我们网站上链接了这份报告。