Nearly 50% of people aged 12-35 years – or 1.1 billion young people – are at risk of hearing loss due to prolonged and excessive exposure to loud sounds, including music they listen to through personal audio devices.
Ahead of World Hearing Day (3 March), the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) have issued a new international standard for the manufacture and use of these devices, which include smartphones and audio players, to make them safer for listening.
"Given that we have the technological know-how to prevent hearing loss, it should not be the case that so many young people continue to damage their hearing while listening to music,” says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General.
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他们必须明白,听力一旦损失,就不会再恢复。
"They must understand that once they lose their hearing, it won’t come back.
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这项新的世卫组织-国际电联标准将使这些年轻消费者在娱乐时得到更好的保护”。
This new WHO-ITU standard will do much to better safeguard these young consumers as they go about doing something they enjoy.”
Over 5% of the world’s population – or 466 million people – has disabling hearing loss (432 million adults and 34 million children); impacting on their quality of life.
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这些人绝大多数生活在低收入和中等收入国家。
The majority live in low- and middle-income countries.
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据估计,到2050年,将有超过9亿人(或每10人中就有1人)罹患残疾性听力丧失。
It is estimated that by 2050 over 900 million people – or 1 in every 10 people – will have disabling hearing loss.
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听力损失问题得不到处理,每年将给全球造成7500亿美元费用。
Hearing loss which is not addressed poses an annual globalcost of US$ 750 billion.