2008年职称英语考试阅读判断习题(二十)

Center Launched to Fight Diseases

A national disease prevention and control center has just been established to enhance efforts to fight diseases. The center will focus on conducting investigations, research and supervision of various diseases, and public health problems, and suggesting corresponding prevention and control measures, officials of the Ministry of Health said Wednesday. The center will also provide a scientific basis for the ministry to make health policies, laws and regulations.

China’s present epidemic and disease prevention system has lagged behind the development of various diseases and public health problems brought by industrialization and aging of the population, the officials said.

The ministry has several separate disease prevention and control centers, such as the National Center for AIDS Prevention and Control, but it is hard for them to pool efforts and to cover all fields. Many difficulties in improving the country’s health were a result of the shortage of advanced technology in preventive medicine adequate epidemic supervision and effective health education.

Now, AIDS, TB and other infectious diseases pose serious threats to public heath, while more and more people continue to die from non-infectious diseases. Experts estimate that China now has 600,000 HIV/AIDS victims, and the number is increasing by 30 per cent annually. However, there is still no effective prevention and control system to fight the deadly disease.

Meanwhile, people lack knowledge of the cause, spread and development of epidemic, vermin-caused, occupational diseases and many other non-infectious diseases. This makes control work more difficult. Official figures show that 90 per cent of total deaths are caused by chronic and non-infectious diseases, such as tumors and blood diseases of the heart and brain.

At the same time, China is becoming an “aging society”, which 10 per cent of its population over 60. This will also bring many public health problems which will need effective supervision and study.

The establishment of the center is expected to play a leading role in disease supervision, the officials said. The center will also cover the hygienic supervision of food, workplaces, schools and other public places. Prevention and control programs against various diseases will be created by the center, which also will be in charge of evaluating the development of the programs. All nations’ vaccination programs will be done by the center and its branches, and all the biological products for prevention will be under the control and management of the center. More health education and improvement work will be done by the center in field of diseases prevention.

练习：

1. The main task of the center is to draw up documents in health policies, laws and regulations for the Ministry of Health.