VOA常速英语2019--或有新疫苗对抗埃博拉（在线收听）

In Congo, Ebola claims the lives of 60 percent of those who get the virus. The disease is so devastating, even those who survive it are shunned. Really makes it frightening is the high mortality rate, the very severe symptoms that people experience. And you know the fact that it comes up when not expected. The death rate is high even after a vaccine was used in West Africa during an Ebola outbreak that claimed 11,000 lives.

在刚果，埃博拉感染者中，有60%的人失去了生命。埃博拉这种疾病十分可怕，即便幸存下来的人也避之唯恐不及。埃博拉真正让人感到可怕的地方在于其所导致的死亡率过高，而且症状也十分严重，经历过的人都知道。而且，大家都知道一个事实，那就是埃博拉来得总是毫无征兆。死亡率居高不下，即便西非地区用了疫苗后依然如此。这次用疫苗是在一次埃博拉爆发之后，这次爆发导致1.1万人丧命。

Dr. Paul Spearman is leading a US team of investigators to develop better and longer-lasting vaccines. Researchers are conducting a clinical trial that’s testing two experimental Ebola vaccines. We’re giving one vaccine and followed one week later by another vaccine, and that could give you very rapid protection. If the vaccine combination proves effective, it could be used in African countries where Ebola breaks out regularly. These epidemics that occur in several parts of Africa can arise without warning. The vaccines don’t contain the Ebola virus, but they produce a major Ebola virus protein. That’s designed to get the immune system to react. Study participants are well aware of the health and humanitarian crisis Ebola causes. Anything that we can do with research through research to stop it or prevent it, or make it so that it’s not something that grows rapidly or spreads rapidly, and I think being a part of something like that. To see if these vaccines work, researchers test the volunteers blood samples which are collected before getting injected with the experimental vaccine and also afterwards. We have baseline after one week after two weeks and we can be compared the three and then see what difference vaccination makes. The researchers hope their work could provide clues for other Ebola vaccines as well as a better understanding of how to build immunity to other pathogens, which are viruses, bacteria or other bugs that can cause disease.

保罗博士正在带领一组美国研究人员研发品质更好、药效更持久的疫苗。研究人员正在进行临床试验，对2种埃博拉疫苗进行检测。我们接种了一种疫苗，一周后又尝试了另一种疫苗。这两种疫苗可以迅速形成保护。如果将2种疫苗结合有效的话，就可以用于埃博拉定期爆发的非洲国家中。埃博拉疫情在非洲的部分地区出现得毫无征兆。虽然疫苗中不含有埃博拉病毒，但疫苗会产生一种重要的埃博拉病毒蛋白质。疫苗设计的初衷是让免疫系统产生反应。参加研究的人深刻意识到了健康危机和人道主义危机，这都是埃博拉引起的。我们通过研究要做的是阻止或者预防埃博拉，或者让埃博拉传播得不那么快，类似这种。为了看这2种疫苗是否起作用，研究人员检测了志愿者的血液样本。这些样本在收集来之后，才跟用于实验的疫苗一起注射；反过来的流程也有做实验。我们有基线，一周后、两周后，我们会对比三者，看看疫苗产生了哪些影响。研究人员希望他们的工作可以提供其他埃博拉疫苗的线索，也能更好地了解如何免疫其他病原体，即病毒、细菌或者其他引发埃博拉的虫类。