美国国家公共电台 NPR When A Mystery Outbreak Strikes, Who You Gonna Call?

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

I think we might call this next story CSI Diseases. At the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, there is a group of doctors. They call themselves the Epidemic¹ Intelligence Service. They're basically disease detectives, and they've developed this reputation around the world as the team local health officials can turn to when faced with a mysterious outbreak. Here's NPR's Jason Beaubien.

JASON BEAUBIEN, BYLINE²: In late April of last year, people who'd gathered for a funeral in a small port city in Liberia started getting violently sick.

JAYMIN PATEL: There were these cases that showed up at a hospital, and a good amount of them were either dead on arrival or had a severe manifestation³ of a disease.

BEAUBIEN: Jaymin Patel is an epidemic intelligence officer with the CDC based out of Atlanta. The first reports of the outbreak were that 10 people who'd been at the funeral were admitted to a hospital in Greenville, Liberia, and within hours, five of them were dead.

PATEL: The level of concern was very high.

BEAUBIEN: The most common symptoms were vomiting⁴, diarrhea and severe stomach cramps⁵. Some of the patients had a fever. Rumors⁶ started to spread.

PATEL: I think a lot of people were thinking was, like, is Ebola back?

BEAUBIEN: Ebola, which had killed nearly 5,000 people in Liberia just a few years earlier. So tissue samples from several of the funeral attendees were collected and sent to the Liberian Ministry⁷ of Health's lab to be screened for Ebola. They tested negative.

PATEL: And so people thought, like, maybe it is a non-infectious cause of the outbreak, like toxic⁸ poisoning or something that was consumed.

BEAUBIEN: The CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service has a two-year postgraduate⁹ training program. CDC officers get field experience. Local health officials get access to a rapid response force for disease outbreaks. With the case in Liberia, samples of blood, urine and saliva¹⁰ were shipped to the CDC's headquarters in Atlanta. The samples were screened for heavy metals, insecticides and dozens of infectious agents. Finally, the CDC lab isolated¹¹ the culprit, a bacteria that was causing meningococcal blood infections. In the end, the mystery was solved, but only after 31 people got sick and 13 died. Tolbert Nyenswah, the director general of the National Public Health Institute of Liberia, says this is a rare disease for his country. And prior to this outbreak, Liberia didn't have the sophisticated laboratory equipment needed to screen for it.

TOLBERT NYENSWAH: It would have been difficult to be detected because our lab didn't have the capacity to do that. And so CDC coming in was very helpful.

BEAUBIEN: Now Liberia has the equipment it needs to test for this disease in the future. Currently, the CDC has 149 Epidemic Intelligence Officers in the two-year program. They're just as likely to get called in to help with an outbreak in Ohio as in Africa. Last year other CDC disease detectives probed the cause of food poisoning at a chili¹² and chowder cook-off in Virginia. They tested cooling systems in New York City for Legionnaires' disease. They analyzed¹³ exposure to MERS virus among workers at a camel market in the United Arab Emirates. Caitlin Cossaboom got sent to investigate a massive wildlife die off in Namibia, and she had to take tissue samples from bloated, rotting hippo carcasses.

CAITLIN COSSABOOM: Even just with the few carcasses that I was working with, the smell was really incredible.

BEAUBIEN: Cossaboom helped confirm that it was actually anthrax that was killing¹⁴ the wildlife. She brought a new anthrax diagnostic machine with her. Like so many of the disease detectives, she got hands-on experience with a rare infectious agent. Namibian officials got help with the investigation¹⁵ and access to cutting-edge, new diagnostic technology. And that sort of sums up what this program does. It provides assistance in a time of crisis to local health officials, and in return, CDC epidemiologists get valuable experience in the field.

Jason Beaubien, NPR News.

1 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

2 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。

3 manifestation   

n.表现形式；表明；现象

参考例句：

• Her smile is a manifestation of joy.她的微笑是她快乐的表现。
• What we call mass is only another manifestation of energy.我们称之为质量的东西只是能量的另一种表现形态。

4 vomiting   

吐

参考例句：

• Symptoms include diarrhoea and vomiting. 症状有腹泻和呕吐。
• Especially when I feel seasick, I can't stand watching someone else vomiting." 尤其晕船的时候，看不得人家呕。”

5 cramps   

n. 抽筋, 腹部绞痛, 铁箍 adj. 狭窄的, 难解的 v. 使...抽筋, 以铁箍扣紧, 束缚

参考例句：

• If he cramps again let the line cut him off. 要是它再抽筋，就让这钓索把它勒断吧。
• "I have no cramps." he said. “我没抽筋，"他说。

6 rumors   

n.传闻( rumor的名词复数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷v.传闻( rumor的第三人称单数 )；[古]名誉；咕哝；[古]喧嚷

参考例句：

• Rumors have it that the school was burned down. 有谣言说学校给烧掉了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Rumors of a revolt were afloat. 叛变的谣言四起。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

8 toxic   

adj.有毒的，因中毒引起的

参考例句：

• The factory had accidentally released a quantity of toxic waste into the sea.这家工厂意外泄漏大量有毒废物到海中。
• There is a risk that toxic chemicals might be blasted into the atmosphere.爆炸后有毒化学物质可能会进入大气层。

9 postgraduate   

adj.大学毕业后的，大学研究院的；n.研究生

参考例句：

• I didn't put down that I had postgraduate degree.我没有写上我有硕士学位。
• After college,Mary hopes to do postgraduate work in law school.大学毕业后， 玛丽想在法学院从事研究工作。

10 saliva   

n.唾液，口水

参考例句：

• He wiped a dribble of saliva from his chin.他擦掉了下巴上的几滴口水。
• Saliva dribbled from the baby's mouth.唾液从婴儿的嘴里流了出来。

11 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

12 chili   

n.辣椒

参考例句：

• He helped himself to another two small spoonfuls of chili oil.他自己下手又加了两小勺辣椒油。
• It has chocolate,chili,and other spices.有巧克力粉，辣椒，和其他的调味品。

13 analyzed   

v.分析( analyze的过去式和过去分词 )；分解；解释；对…进行心理分析

参考例句：

• The doctors analyzed the blood sample for anemia. 医生们分析了贫血的血样。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The young man did not analyze the process of his captivation and enrapturement, for love to him was a mystery and could not be analyzed. 这年轻人没有分析自己蛊惑著迷的过程，因为对他来说，爱是个不可分析的迷。 来自《简明英汉词典》

14 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。

15 investigation   

n.调查，调查研究

参考例句：

• In an investigation,a new fact became known, which told against him.在调查中新发现了一件对他不利的事实。
• He drew the conclusion by building on his own investigation.他根据自己的调查研究作出结论。