VOA慢速英语2018 美国:去年冬天8万人死于流感（在线收听）

US: 80,000 Flu Deaths Last Winter

United States health officials say an estimated 80,000 people died of influenza and problems resulting from the flu last winter.

美国卫生官员表示，去年冬天估计有8万人死于流感和流感引发的疾病。

The director for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported the number to The Associated Press. It represents the largest number of flu deaths nationwide in at least 40 years.

美国疾病控制和预防中心（简称CDC）主任向美联社报告了这一数字，这是美国至少40年以来流感死亡的最大数值。

Health experts were expecting the winter of 2017-2018 to be a bad year for flu deaths, but not that bad.

卫生专家当时预计2017到2018年冬季是流感死亡非常严重的一年，但并没有那么严重。

Doctor William Schaffner is an expert on vaccines. He works at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. Schaffner noted that 80,000 deaths is nearly two times as much as what health officials once considered a “bad year.”

威廉·沙夫纳（William Schaffner）博士是一名疫苗专家。他在田纳西州的范德比尔特大学工作。沙夫纳指出，8万人死亡几乎是卫生官员曾经以为的“严重的一年”的两倍。

CDC officials say that between 12,000 and 56,000 Americans die every year from flu-related causes.

美国疾病控制和预防中心官员表示，每年有1.2万到5.6万美国人死于流感相关原因。

While 80,000 deaths seems high, the exact number could be even higher.

虽然8万人的死亡率看上去很高，但具体数字可能甚至会更高。

CDC officials do not have an exact count of how many people die from the flu each year. Influenza is a relatively common disease and not all flu cases are reported. Also, flu is not always listed on death records as the official cause of death. For that reason, the CDC must estimate the number of dead based on statistical models.

美国疾病控制和预防中心官员并不确切知道每年有多少人死亡流感。流感是一种相对常见的疾病，并非所有流感病例都有报告。此外，流感并不总是列在死亡纪录中作为正式死亡原因。因此，CDC必须根据统计模型来估计死亡人数。

While last winter was a bad flu season in the U.S., it was not the worst.

虽然去年冬天在美国是一次严重的流感季，但是这并非最严重的。

The 1918 flu pandemic lasted nearly two years. Historians estimate that the disease was to blame for between 500,000 to 700,000 deaths during that period. The exact number is still not known.

1918年的流感大流行持续了近两年。历史学家估计，在此期间，该疾病造成了近50到70万人死亡，确切数字仍然不得而知。

One thing that made the 2017-2018 flu season so bad was that the strain of the flu virus was strong. Usually the disease kills the very young, the very old or those who are already sick. However, last winter, the flu killed many healthy Americans.

让2017到2018年流感季如此严重的原因之一是这次流感病毒的毒株很强。通常这种疾病会让老幼病弱死亡。然而去年冬天的流感导致了很多健康的美国人死亡。

Another thing that made the flu season so deadly was that the flu vaccine was not as effective as experts had predicted.

这次流感季如此致命的另一项原因是流感疫苗没有专家预测的那么有效。

In a 2017 statement to the press, the World Health Organization said that every year up to 650,000 deaths are connected with influenza or influenza-related illnesses. This is a new estimate by the U.S. CDC, the WHO and global health partners. This is more than the global estimate from ten years ago. At that time, experts estimated that between 250,000 to 500,000 people died from influenza or influenza-related illnesses.

世界卫生组织在2017年向媒体发表的声明中表示，每年都有多达65万人死于流感或流感相关疾病。这是美国疾病控制和预防中心、世界卫生组织以及全球卫生合作伙伴的最新估计，它高出了10年前的全球估计。当时，专家估计每年有25万到50万人死于流感或流感相关疾病。

Back in the U.S., health officials are predicting a weaker strain of flu virus this coming winter. Drug makers have made changes to the vaccine. Even though the vaccine did not work well last year, health experts still strongly suggest getting vaccinated.

说回美国，卫生官员预测今年冬天的流感病毒将会变弱。制药商已经对疫苗进行了改进。尽管去年流感疫苗效果不佳，但是卫生专家还是强烈建议人们接种疫苗。

I’m Anna Matteo.

Words in This Story

exact – adj. fully and completely correct or accurate

statistical – adj. of, relating to, based on, or employing the principles of statistics

pandemic – medical noun : an occurrence in which a disease spreads very quickly and affects a large number of people over a wide area or throughout the world

strain – medical noun : group of closely related living things that look similar but possess one or more unique characteristics