ailment 復習
インドの病院で３日間という短い期間に35人の子供が亡くなるという事件についての記事からです。
35 children die in north Indian hospital in 3 days
Parents of at least 35 children who have died in a state-run hospital in northern India over the past three days have alleged that the fatalities were due to the lack of a sufficient oxygen supply in the children's ward.
District Magistrate Rajiv Rautela said Saturday that the deaths of the children being treated for different ailments at the Baba Raghav Das Medical College Hospital in Gorakhpur city in Uttar Pradesh state were due to natural causes. He denied that an insufficient oxygen supply led to their deaths.
Parents said that the oxygen supply to the ward ran out Thursday night and that patients' families were given self-inflating bags to help the children breathe.
"That's the time when the death of the children peaked," said Mritunjaya Singh, whose 7-month-old son was admitted to the hospital and was not among the dead.
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/35-children-die-north-indian-hospital-days-49174279
取り上げる単語は"ailment"です。『ジーニアス英和辞典』第４版（大修館）で調べてみると、「（通例軽いまたは蔓延の）病気、不快」とあり、"disease"とほぼ同じ意味になります。LDOCEでは、"an illness that is not very serious"と定義されています。子供たちはそれぞれ、異なる病気で入院していましたが、死亡した原因は皆同じく、酸素不足だったとのことです。(Akim)
