美国国家公共电台 NPR Judging The Potential Threat Of The Wuhan Coronavirus

 

ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:

Today health officials announced the first U.S. patient with a new virus, a type of coronavirus. It can cause severe respiratory problems, including pneumonia¹. This patient lives in Washington state. He tested positive for coronavirus after visiting the city of Wuhan, China. Nearly 300 people there have already gotten sick. NPR's Nurith Aizenman has more on the disease and how it's spreading.

NURITH AIZENMAN, BYLINE²: This outbreak in China has been going on for at least a month and a half, but experts still have some basic questions.

MATTHEW FREEMAN: First question is - we don't know where the virus is coming from.

AIZENMAN: Matthew Freeman is a virologist with the University of Maryland School of Medicine. He notes that many people initially³ infected in this outbreak had visited a live animal market in Wuhan. That suggests they caught the virus through contact with animals there, which is the typical path for new strains of this type of pathogen, part of a family called coronaviruses.

FREEMAN: The coronavirus family has been found in bats.

AIZENMAN: Which can then spread it to other species that people tend to have more contact with. That's what sparked a massive coronavirus outbreak in Asia back in 2002 that was called severe acute respiratory syndrome⁴, or SARS.

FREEMAN: For SARS, it was these palm civet cats that were being sold in animal markets in China. And once that was identified, then the Chinese government banned the sale of civet cats.

AIZENMAN: Eventually, SARS was stamped out. But in this case, it's proving difficult to figure out what the animal reservoir is. Linfa Wang is a virologist at Duke National University of Singapore. He's just returned from a visit to Wuhan, where he says Chinese health officials may have inadvertently erased⁵ crucial evidence in their zeal⁶ to clean up that market.

LINFA WANG: They're just so nervous about their market, and they just send, you know, disinfection people and totally, you know, fumigate⁷ it - you know, gas it.

AIZENMAN: Now Chinese scientists are playing catch-up, sampling animals in other markets to see if they have the virus. Here's virologist Freeman again.

FREEMAN: So until we know what the animal is, there potentially could still be animals being sold in markets all across China that is spilling virus over into people.

AIZENMAN: Even if officials can stop that spread, they'll still need to tackle another challenge. The virus now also appears to be spreading not just from animals to humans, but from one human to another, which raises the next big question. How? David Heymann is an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene⁸ and Tropical Medicine. He says one clue is that there seem to be many clusters of infected people who belong to the same family. They've had intense contact with an infected person.

DAVID HEYMANN: Touching⁹ patients and then contaminating yourself by not having washed hands - it doesn't seem that the current virus spreads very easily face-to-face, like with a cough or a sneeze.

AIZENMAN: But Heymann adds we also don't know what share of infections happened through these family clusters. Take the new case in Washington state. That patient says he didn't visit any markets, and he doesn't recall coming into contact with anyone who was ill. Another recent troubling development - at least 15 health workers in Wuhan have been infected with a new coronavirus.

HEYMANN: And that's always an evil omen¹⁰.

AIZENMAN: Hospital workers have contact with so many sick people, Heymann says. When they get sick, they can really amplify¹¹ an infection.

Nurith Aizenman, NPR News.

1 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

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 initially   

adv.最初，开始

参考例句：

• The ban was initially opposed by the US.这一禁令首先遭到美国的反对。
• Feathers initially developed from insect scales.羽毛最初由昆虫的翅瓣演化而来。

4 syndrome   

n.综合病症；并存特性

参考例句：

• The Institute says that an unidentified virus is to blame for the syndrome. 该研究所表示,引起这种综合症的是一种尚未确认的病毒。
• Results indicated that 11 fetuses had Down syndrome. 结果表明有11个胎儿患有唐氏综合征。

5 erased   

v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除

参考例句：

• He erased the wrong answer and wrote in the right one. 他擦去了错误答案，写上了正确答案。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He removed the dogmatism from politics; he erased the party line. 他根除了政治中的教条主义，消除了政党界限。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 zeal   

n.热心，热情，热忱

参考例句：

• Revolutionary zeal caught them up,and they joined the army.革命热情激励他们，于是他们从军了。
• They worked with great zeal to finish the project.他们热情高涨地工作，以期完成这个项目。

7 fumigate   

v.烟熏；用香薰

参考例句：

• As preventive,spray plants with systemic insecticide or fumigate them regularly.作为预防措施，要用内吸杀虫剂对植物定期喷洒，或熏蒸。
• The hospital ward was fumigated after the outbreak of typhus.发现斑疹伤寒以后，医院的病房进行了烟熏消毒。

8 hygiene   

n.健康法，卫生学 （a.hygienic）

参考例句：

• Their course of study includes elementary hygiene and medical theory.他们的课程包括基础卫生学和医疗知识。
• He's going to give us a lecture on public hygiene.他要给我们作关于公共卫生方面的报告。

9 touching   

adj.动人的，使人感伤的

参考例句：

• It was a touching sight.这是一幅动人的景象。
• His letter was touching.他的信很感人。

10 omen   

n.征兆，预兆；vt.预示

参考例句：

• The superstitious regard it as a bad omen.迷信的人认为那是一种恶兆。
• Could this at last be a good omen for peace?这是否终于可以视作和平的吉兆了？

11 amplify   

vt.放大，增强；详述，详加解说

参考例句：

• The new manager wants to amplify the company.新经理想要扩大公司。
• Please amplify your remarks by giving us some examples.请举例详述你的话。