美國(guó)英語聽力80篇3 Lesson55
Breast-feeding and HIV
The World Health Organization says about 600,000-- 300 babies got H-I-V,
the virus that causes AIDS, from their mothers in 1998.
It says 90% of those babies were in African countries south of the Sahara Desert.
Did those babies have the virus at birth?
Or did they become infected later in life?
A new study says breast-feeding is a major cause of H-I-V in African babies.
It was published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
The study was led by Ruth Nduati of the University of Nairobi in Kenya.
She had help from researchers from the University of Seattle in the American state of Washington.
The researchers divided 800 H-I-V infected Kenyan mothers into two groups.
One group breast-fed their new babies.
The other women fed their babies a liquid baby food called formula.
Ninety of the babies became infected with H-I-V.
The rate of infection was two times higher among the breast-fed babies than among the others.
The researchers also found that infection from breast milk often happens within the first few months of the baby's life.
However, the study shows that reducing the AIDS virus in babies is not as simple as changing from breast-feeding to formula.
The researchers found that after two years, the death rate of the babies in the two groups was the same-about 20%.
Mary Glenn Fowler works for the United States Centers for Disease Control.
She says African babies who are not breast-fed have other risks.
She says baby formula needs to be mixed with water.
In many poor countries, water is unsafe to drink.
It can lead to deadly diarrhea in babies.
She also notes that breast-feeding is traditional in African countries.
Doctor Fowler thinks infected women should be given drugs that fight the AIDS virus
while they are pregnant and not breast-feed their babies.
She says the anti-AIDS drugs also would offer some protection to babies who are breast-fed.
But, Doctor Nduati says public health officials must do more than that.
She says one in every three to four pregnant women has H-I-V in African cities south of the Sahara.
