美国国家公共电台 NPR Rare Disease Finds Fertile Ground In Rohingya Refugee Camps

Rare Disease Finds Fertile Ground In Rohingya Refugee Camps

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

A diptheria outbreak is worsening in Bangladesh in what's rapidly become the largest refugee camp in the world. The camp is home to some of the hundreds of thousands of Rohingya people who fled Myanmar since August last year.

NPR's Jason Beaubien reports.

(SOUNDBITE OF BABY CRYING )

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE¹: The waiting room at the Samaritan's Purse Diptheria Treatment Center in the Balukhali refugee camp is packed. The room isn't really a room. It's just some benches under a tarp awning².

ANDY DOYLE: Yesterday was a very busy day for us. We saw 117 patients came in to be screened. That's the most we've seen in any given day.

BEAUBIEN: Dr. Andy Doyle is the medical director for this tented field hospital. This facility only treats diptheria, an airborne bacterial³ infection that can be fatal. So the very first thing the staff members do is make sure the patient really has diptheria and not just a bad cold.

DOYLE: It's not something we see in the West. Or most of us - all of us from the West that are working here never saw this disease until we got here a week or two ago, and now we're experts on it.

BEAUBIEN: It's not seen in the West because almost everyone is vaccinated⁴ against it. Doyle says diptheria turns out to be pretty easy to identify. The patients have high fever or a sore throat, often a runny nose and a severe inflammation in the back of their throat.

DOYLE: Sometimes they get swelling⁵ in their necks, especially in the younger children. And their neck itself will get really big. It's called a bull neck. And those are the signs that the airway⁶ is in impending⁷ danger, and that's what we look for.

BEAUBIEN: And that's how diptheria kills. The person's throat swells⁸ up, and eventually they can't breathe. As of the middle of January, there've been nearly 5,000 reported cases of diptheria in these camps and 33 deaths. The refugees are packed together in makeshift shelters. Toilets and water wells have been randomly⁹ dug all over the camps, often side by side. The poor sanitation¹⁰ in the camps plus the extremely low vaccination¹¹ rates among the Rohingya have allowed the disease to flourish. Diptheria can often be treated with antibiotics¹². But if the person's airway is in danger of being blocked, they're given an antitoxin via an intravenous drip. The treatment has the potential to spark a fatal reaction.

DOYLE: For the entire administration of the medication, which can take anywhere from four to six hours, that nurse will sit at that bedside the whole time monitoring, watching for the slightest hint. And they've gotten really good at picking up the very subtle signs that an allergic¹³ reaction's about to start.

BEAUBIEN: In a ward¹⁴ in a big, white tent behind the reception area, Nur Aysia Begum is on hour No. 2 of the treatment. She's one of the more than 650,000 Rohingya refugees who arrived in this camp over the last five months to escape what the U.N. has called a campaign of ethnic¹⁵ cleansing¹⁶ by the Myanmar military. Her mother, Nayna Khatun, says they feared they'd be killed by the soldiers if they stayed. Now their family of seven lives in a small bamboo and plastic shelter and relies on international food aid to survive.

NAYNA KHATUN: (Foreign language spoken).

BEAUBIEN: When her daughter got sick, Khatun says she was worried because she didn't have any money to pay for a doctor or medicine. All of the treatment, however, at this Samaritan's Purse clinic is free. Marcella Kraay, a project coordinator¹⁷ with Doctors Without Borders, says this refugee situation is extreme in many ways.

MARCELLA KRAAY: We've had a big measles¹⁸ outbreak, and we've also had the biggest diphtheria outbreak in - you know, that the world has seen in a long time.

BEAUBIEN: Kraay says back in Myanmar, the Rohingya lacked access to even the most basic immunizations.

KRAAY: What we can see is that the refugee population - specifically the Rohingya - had very little access to health care.

BEAUBIEN: Humanitarian¹⁹ groups have launched a massive campaign to try to immunize nearly a million people in and around the refugee camps against diptheria and other vaccine-preventable diseases. But it will take several rounds of these immunizations before the Rohingya will have adequate protection against diptheria.

Jason Beaubien, NPR News, Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh.

1 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。

2 awning   

n.遮阳篷；雨篷

参考例句：

• A large green awning is set over the glass window to shelter against the sun.在玻璃窗上装了个绿色的大遮棚以遮挡阳光。
• Several people herded under an awning to get out the shower.几个人聚集在门栅下避阵雨

3 bacterial   

a.细菌的

参考例句：

• Bacterial reproduction is accelerated in weightless space. 在失重的空间，细菌繁殖加快了。
• Brain lesions can be caused by bacterial infections. 大脑损伤可能由细菌感染引起。

4 vaccinated   

[医]已接种的，种痘的，接种过疫菌的

参考例句：

• I was vaccinated against tetanus. 我接种了破伤风疫苗。
• Were you vaccinated against smallpox as a child? 你小时候打过天花疫苗吗？

5 swelling   

n.肿胀

参考例句：

• Use ice to reduce the swelling. 用冰敷消肿。
• There is a marked swelling of the lymph nodes. 淋巴结处有明显的肿块。

6 airway   

n.空中航线，通风口

参考例句：

• Lay them on their side and ensure the airway is unobstructed.让他们侧躺着，并确保呼吸道畅通。
• There is a purple airway in London Airport.伦敦机场里有一条皇家专用飞机跑道。

7 impending   

a.imminent, about to come or happen

参考例句：

• Against a background of impending famine, heavy fighting took place. 即将发生饥荒之时，严重的战乱爆发了。
• The king convoke parliament to cope with the impending danger. 国王召开国会以应付迫近眉睫的危险。

8 swells   

增强( swell的第三人称单数 )； 肿胀； （使）凸出； 充满（激情）

参考例句：

• The waters were heaving up in great swells. 河水正在急剧上升。
• A barrel swells in the middle. 水桶中部隆起。

9 randomly   

adv.随便地，未加计划地

参考例句：

• Within the hot gas chamber, molecules are moving randomly in all directions. 在灼热的气体燃烧室内，分子在各个方向上作无规运动。 来自辞典例句
• Transformed cells are loosely attached, rounded and randomly oriented. 转化细胞则不大贴壁、圆缩并呈杂乱分布。 来自辞典例句

10 sanitation   

n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备

参考例句：

• The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看，这个地段非常糟糕。
• Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。

11 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

12 antibiotics   

n.（用作复数）抗生素；（用作单数）抗生物质的研究；抗生素，抗菌素( antibiotic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century 20世纪抗生素的发现
• The doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 医生给我开了抗生素。

13 allergic   

adj.过敏的，变态的

参考例句：

• Alice is allergic to the fur of cats.艾丽斯对猫的皮毛过敏。
• Many people are allergic to airborne pollutants such as pollen.许多人对空气传播的污染物过敏，比如花粉。

14 ward   

n.守卫，监护，病房，行政区，由监护人或法院保护的人（尤指儿童）；vt.守护，躲开

参考例句：

• The hospital has a medical ward and a surgical ward.这家医院有内科病房和外科病房。
• During the evening picnic,I'll carry a torch to ward off the bugs.傍晚野餐时，我要点根火把，抵挡蚊虫。

15 ethnic   

adj.人种的，种族的，异教徒的

参考例句：

• This music would sound more ethnic if you played it in steel drums.如果你用钢鼓演奏，这首乐曲将更具民族特色。
• The plan is likely only to aggravate ethnic frictions.这一方案很有可能只会加剧种族冲突。

16 cleansing   

n. 净化(垃圾) adj. 清洁用的 动词cleanse的现在分词

参考例句：

• medicated cleansing pads for sensitive skin 敏感皮肤药物清洗棉
• Soap is not the only cleansing agent. 肥皂并不是唯一的清洁剂。

17 coordinator   

n.协调人

参考例句：

• The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, headed by the Emergency Relief Coordinator, coordinates all UN emergency relief. 联合国人道主义事务协调厅在紧急救济协调员领导下，负责协调联合国的所有紧急救济工作。
• How am I supposed to find the client-relations coordinator? 我怎么才能找到客户关系协调员的办公室？

18 measles   

n.麻疹，风疹，包虫病，痧子

参考例句：

• The doctor is quite definite about Tom having measles.医生十分肯定汤姆得了麻疹。
• The doctor told her to watch out for symptoms of measles.医生叫她注意麻疹出现的症状。

19 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。