每日英語跟讀 Ep.963: A Cataclysm of Hunger, Disease and Illiteracy 新冠肺炎疫情後 飢餓疾病與失學的大難

We think of COVID-19 as killing primarily the elderly around the world, but in poor countries it is more cataclysmic than that.

我們認為新冠肺炎在世界各地主要是奪走年長者的性命，然而在貧窮國家，災情不止於此。

It is killing children through malnutrition. It is leading more people to die from tuberculosis, malaria and AIDS. It is forcing girls out of school and into child marriages. It is causing women to die in childbirth. It is setting back efforts to eradicate polio, fight malaria and reduce female genital mutilation. It is leading to lapses in vitamin A distribution that will cause more children to suffer blindness and die.

它透過營養不良殺害兒童，讓更多人死於肺結核、瘧疾和愛滋病。它迫使女孩輟學進入童婚，導致婦女在分娩時死亡。它阻滯根絕小兒麻痺、對抗瘧疾和減少女性割陰的努力。它妨礙維他命A的發放，讓更多兒童因此失明及死亡。

The U.N. Population Fund warns that COVID-19 may lead to an additional 13 million child marriages around the world and to some 47 million women being unable to get access to modern contraception.

聯合國人口基金警告，新冠肺炎可能使全球增加1300萬件童婚，約4700萬名女性無法獲得現代化避孕方法。

In short, a pandemic of disease, illiteracy and extreme poverty is following on the heels of this coronavirus pandemic — and it is hitting children hardest.

簡言之，一場疾病、未受教育和赤貧的大流行「疫情」，將緊隨這場疫情而來，又以兒童所受打擊最大。

The greatest impact of COVID-19 may be not on those whom the virus directly infects, but on those shattered by the collapse of economies and health and education systems in developing countries.

新冠肺炎所產生的最大衝擊，可能並不顯現在受病毒直接感染者身上，而是見諸開發中國家因經濟、醫療和教育系統崩潰而深受其害者的身上。

“The indirect impact of COVID-19 in the Global South will be even greater than the direct impact,” Dr. Muhammad Musa, executive director of BRAC International, an outstanding Bangladesh-based nonprofit, told me. “The direct impact, as tragic as it is, affects those infected and their families. The indirect impact has economic and social consequences for vastly more people — with jobs lost, families hungry, domestic violence up, more children leaving school, and costs over generations.”

「新冠肺炎在全球南方的非直接衝擊將比直接衝擊更大。」以孟加拉為據點的傑出非營利組織BRAC International執行長穆哈邁德．穆薩博士說。

「直接衝擊儘管令人悲痛，影響的是感染者和他們的家庭。非直接衝擊卻讓遠多於此數的民眾承受經濟和社會後果，失去工作，家人挨餓，家暴增加，更多兒童輟學，以及跨世代的成本。」

In this sense, many of those whom COVID-19 kills never actually get the disease. Instead, they are children who die of measles because they couldn’t get vaccinated in a time of plague — up to 80 million children may miss vaccinations. Or they die of malnutrition because their fathers lost jobs as rickshaw drivers or their mothers couldn’t sell vegetables in the market.

如此看來，新冠病毒害死的人有許多並未真的罹疫，而是疫情期間因未能接種疫苗而死於麻疹的兒童，多達8000萬名兒童可能錯失疫苗接種。抑或是他們死於營養不良，因為他們的父親失去三輪車夫的工作，或是母親無法在市場賣菜。

As is often the case in economic crises, the burden falls particularly on girls.More are being married off as children so that the new husband’s family will feed them, or they are sent off to the city to work as maids in exchange for food and negligible incomes — while facing an end to education and significant risk of abuse.

一如在經濟危機中常見的，重擔特別落在女孩身上。更多人在兒童時就被嫁出去，好讓新婚丈夫家庭養活，或是她們被送到城市中當女傭，換取食物和微不足道的收入，同時面臨教育的結束和很大的受虐風險。

Source article: https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0067/357771/web/