2008年职称英语考试阅读判断习题(十九)

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Business Enlisted in Global War against HIV.AIDS

United Nations Secretary Kofi Annan urged U.S. business leaders Friday to play a “revolutionary role” in the global fight against HIV/AIDS by training and treating their overseas workers infected with the disease. Annan warned that the global HIV/AIDS pandemic is destroying not only communities but also markers in developing countries from southern Africa to the Caribbean to India and China that receive 42 per cent of all U.S. exports.

“AIDS affects business,” Annan said in a speech to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington. “The spread of the pandemic has caused business costs to expand, and markets to shrink.” “The business community needs to get involved to protect its bottom line,” he said.

Annan has spearheaded an effort to establish a global AIDS fund, which he estimates will need as much as 10 billion dollars to finance research, prevention and treatment programs throughout the world. He urged corporations with employees in the developing world to draw up and implement workplace policies dealing with AIDS. “Programs to educate your work force about HIV can become a cornerstone of our global prevention campaign,” he said.

Those programs should also include health care for infested workers, he said. The plunging costs of retroviral drugs used to treat HIV infection makes it cheaper for companies to retain infected workers than train replacements.

Annan held up the experience of Volkswagen in Brazil as an example of a successful corporate effort against HIV/SIDS. Five years ago, the company launched a prevention and education effort, combined with treatment for infected workers and an anti-discrimination policy. Three years later, the company reported a 90 per cent reduction in hospitalization of infected workers and a 40 per cent reduction in treatment costs, Annan said. “This led to increased productivity, reduced absenteeism, reduced loss of employees to AIDS, and higher morale in the work force,” Annan said. “As a result, many families kept their breadwinners, and many children still have their parents”.

The U.N. chief also urged business leaders to become active community spokesmen in the effort against AIDS, contributing their expertise in public affairs, human resources and corporate strategy planning.

Annan said the benefits to business of joining the fight against AIDS created “a happy convergence between what your shareholders pay you for, and what is best for millions of people the world over.”

练习：

1.Annan holds that developing countries are the areas most seriously affected by HIV/AIDS.