美国国家公共电台 NPR Why The World Isn't Close To Eradicating Guinea Worm

Why The World Isn't Close To Eradicating¹ Guinea Worm

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

For the past few years, the world has been on the edge of one of the biggest medical triumphs of modern history. A global effort has nearly wiped out the Guinea worm, a horrific parasite². Where there were millions of cases in the 1980s, there were only seven this year. If those cases dropped to zero, Guinea worm would become only the second human disease ever eradicated³. But a surprising wrinkle has cropped up. Guinea worm, it seems, has found a new way to hide and thrive. NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff reports.

MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE⁴: The last remaining cases are in Africa. If you have Guinea worm, it's excruciatingly painful. The worm can be three feet long, and it slowly emerges from your skin. Sometimes it can take weeks for the worm to come out. David Molyneux is at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. He's been working on eradicating Guinea worm for more than 40 years. He says for decades, things were going swimmingly. Cases had fallen off drastically from millions to just a handful. Then, in 2013...

DAVID MOLYNEUX: Something strange was happening.

DOUCLEFF: In rural parts of Chad, dogs started showing up with worms coming out of their legs - many dogs with many, many worms.

MOLYNEUX: A female dog had a record 62 Guinea worms emerge from it.

DOUCLEFF: Most infections only involve one worm, maybe two or three - but 62?

MOLYNEUX: Now, I mean, that's a huge infection in an animal. I mean, I've never heard of that before. That's extraordinary.

DOUCLEFF: Molyneux says such a huge infection means one thing.

MOLYNEUX: It means there's an awful lot of Guinea worm out there.

DOUCLEFF: An awful lot of Guinea worm spreading across Chad. This year, there have been more than 600 dogs infected, spread over a huge part of the country.

MOLYNEUX: My concern is that it's going to be a longer haul, I think, than we anticipated, and it's a massive challenge.

DOUCLEFF: You see, for more than 100 years, scientists thought they had the Guinea worm figured out. They thought the critter needed people to survive. So if you got rid of it in people, poof, the worm is gone, extinct. But now it looks like Guinea worm can also live in dogs. Dr. Don Hopkins is with the Carter Center, which has led the eradication⁵ effort. He says to wipe Guinea worm off the planet...

DON HOPKINS: We have to get rid of this worm in dogs, as well as the few remaining worms in humans before you can safely say that this disease has been eradicated.

DOUCLEFF: And stopping Guinea worm in dogs isn't easy. Hopkins says it's actually harder than with people. To keep dogs from spreading Guinea worm, they have to be tied up for two weeks while the worms come out of their legs. And dogs in Chad aren't like dogs here in the U.S. They're not pets. They don't come inside or sleep on the bed.

HOPKINS: People use them in households to help protect their crops from baboons⁶ and things like that.

DOUCLEFF: So they roam free day and night. The Carter Center has started paying people $20 to tie up their infected dogs. But there's another problem - no one knows how the dogs are getting infected. At first, they thought dogs were eating infected fish guts⁷. Now they think it might be frogs. Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have started using GPS collars to track the dogs and radio isotope⁸ labeling to figure out what food is left on their whiskers. Despite all of this, Hopkins isn't deterred⁹ about eradication.

HOPKINS: I'm confident we're going to do it and we'll see. But we have seen already 17 of these 21 countries get rid of Guinea worm and have it stay away.

DOUCLEFF: And that confidence comes with some serious credentials¹⁰. Dr. Hopkins knows a thing or two about ending diseases. He was key in eradicating smallpox¹¹, so far the only human disease to be wiped out. Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR News.

1 eradicating   

摧毁，完全根除( eradicate的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Objective: To study the acute and chronic toxicity of Ten-flavor-acne eradicating-capsule. 目的：探讨复方中药合剂十味平痤胶囊的急性及慢性毒性。
• We are on the verge of eradicating polio in the world. 我们已在世界消除小儿？痹症的边缘了。

2 parasite   

n.寄生虫；寄生菌；食客

参考例句：

• The lazy man was a parasite on his family.那懒汉是家里的寄生虫。
• I don't want to be a parasite.I must earn my own way in life.我不想做寄生虫，我要自己养活自己。

3 eradicated   

画着根的

参考例句：

• Polio has been virtually eradicated in Brazil. 在巴西脊髓灰质炎实际上已经根除。
• The disease has been eradicated from the world. 这种疾病已在全世界得到根除。

4 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

5 eradication   

n.根除

参考例句：

• The eradication of an established infestation is not easy. 根除昆虫蔓延是不容易的。
• This is often required for intelligent control and eradication. 这经常需要灵巧的控制与消除。

6 baboons   

n.狒狒( baboon的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Baboons could break branches and leaders. 狒狒会折断侧枝和顶梢。 来自辞典例句
• And as nonprimates, they provoke fewer ethical and safety-related concerns than chimps or baboons. 而且作为非灵长类，就不会产生像用黑猩猩或狒狒那样的伦理和安全方面的顾虑。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 医学的第四次革命

7 guts   

v.狼吞虎咽，贪婪地吃，飞碟游戏（比赛双方每组5人，相距15码，互相掷接飞碟）；毁坏（建筑物等）的内部( gut的第三人称单数 )；取出…的内脏n.勇气( gut的名词复数 )；内脏；消化道的下段；肠

参考例句：

• I'll only cook fish if the guts have been removed. 鱼若已收拾干净，我只需烧一下即可。
• Barbara hasn't got the guts to leave her mother. 巴巴拉没有勇气离开她妈妈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

8 isotope   

n.同位素

参考例句：

• The isotope ratio is directly used for comparing oils or gases.同位素比率直接用于比较各种石油或天然气。
• How to apply a radio isotope?如何运用放射性同位素？

9 deterred   

v.阻止，制止( deter的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I told him I wasn't interested, but he wasn't deterred. 我已告诉他我不感兴趣，可他却不罢休。
• Jeremy was not deterred by this criticism. 杰里米没有因这一批评而却步。 来自辞典例句

10 credentials   

n.证明，资格，证明书，证件

参考例句：

• He has long credentials of diplomatic service.他的外交工作资历很深。
• Both candidates for the job have excellent credentials.此项工作的两个求职者都非常符合资格。

11 smallpox   

n.天花

参考例句：

• In 1742 he suffered a fatal attack of smallpox.1742年，他染上了致命的天花。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child?你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？