afflict
单词辨析：
指糟糕的事情（如病痛、问题等）在很长一段时间内不断困扰某个人、组织、地区等，通常用被动语态。
He was plagued by insomnia.
他受到失眠的折磨。
Labour shortages continued to plague that area.
用工荒继续困扰该地区。
指疾病、战争、贫困等让某人、某地区等饱受折磨，常用被动语态。
About 20% of that country's population is afflicted by famine.
那个国家20%左右的居民饱受饥荒之苦。
How many people around the world are afflicted with arthritis?
世界上有多少人为关节炎所折磨？
指使人、机构、地区等遭受不愉快的事。
The strikes inflicted serious damage on the company.
罢工给公司造成了巨大损失。
Peasants still had to pay the rent despite all of the damage inflicted by the storm.
尽管暴风雪造成了各种损失，农民依然得交租。
相关例句：
They break in pieces thy people, O LORD, and afflict thine heritage.
耶和华阿，他们强压你的百姓，苦害你的产业。
High mortality rates still afflict children of the third world.
高死亡率仍然给第三世界的孩子？带来苦难。
For much of its history, the industry has focused chiefly on the diseases that afflict people in rich countries, while largely neglecting research into diseases of the poor.
在这些公司发展历程中的绝大部分时间里，他们都将首要的注意力集中在困扰发达国家民众的多种疾病上，同时却极大地忽视了对贫穷国家民众疾病的研究。
Finally, a global health fund could be set up to purchase licenses from developers of new medicines essential to treating HIV/ AIDS and other diseases that disproportionately afflict poor countries.
最后，可以建立全球卫生基金用于从开发者手中购买治疗艾滋病和其他对贫困国家影响较大的疾病所必需的最新药品许可证。
-To have, by then, halted, and begun to reverse, the spread of HIV/ AIDS, the scourge of malaria and other major diseases that afflict humanity.
-届时制止并开始扭转艾滋病毒/艾滋病的蔓延、消灭疟疾及其他折磨人类的主要疾病的祸害。
As people open their hearts to this natural disaster, the world is being asked not to forget the no less destructive man-made disasters that afflict fragile states across the globe.
当人们对这一自然灾害倾心相助时，世界也不应忘记那些折磨着全球脆弱国家的、破坏性不亚于自然灾害的人为灾害。