2020年经济学人 保护类人猿免受新冠病毒感染(1)（在线收听）

Late in 1990, when Paul Kagame was hiding on the Congolese side of the Virunga Mountains preparing to invade Rwanda,

1990年末，当时保罗·卡加梅藏身刚果境内的维龙加山脉，准备入侵卢旺达，

his army, the Rwandan Patriotic Front, were not the only formidable inhabitants of that densely forested volcanic range.

他的军队卢旺达爱国阵线并不是那片茂密活火山森林里唯一令人畏惧的居民。

The Virunga are also home to mountain gorillas. Soldiers are notoriously trigger-happy when it comes to wildlife,

维龙加也是山地大猩猩的家园。当涉及野生动物时，士兵们是出了名的喜欢开枪，

but Mr Kagame ordered his men not to shoot the apes. "They will be valuable one day," he said. He was right.

但是卡加梅命令他的士兵不要朝类人猿开枪。“将来它们会非常值钱，”他说道。他是对的。

By 2017, with Mr Kagame now installed as Rwanda's president, that country's wildlife-tourism industry,

到2017年，此时卡加梅已是卢旺达的总统，该国野生动物旅游行业每年价值约4.38亿美元，

of which gorilla-watching on the Rwandan side of the Virungas accounts for 90%, was worth around $438m a year.

其中观看维龙加卢旺达一侧的大猩猩占90%。

But now the world's gorillas, and also their great-ape cousins, the chimpanzees, bonobos and orangutans,

但现在全世界的大猩猩以及它们的类人猿表亲，黑猩猩、倭黑猩猩以及猩猩

face another threat from their human neighbours: covid-19.

面临着来自人类邻居的另一个威胁：新冠肺炎。

Great apes share about 98% of their DNA with human beings, and are vulnerable to many of the same diseases.

类人猿与人类DNA相似度为98%，且很容易感染许多相同的疾病。

So far, there have been no reported cases of wild apes sickening with the new coronavirus.

到目前为止，并没有野生类人猿感染新冠病毒的上报病例。

But some other non-human primates are certainly susceptible.

但一些其他非人灵长动物绝对易受影响。

In China, for example, rhesus macaques have been infected deliberately and successfully as part of vaccine trials.

例如，在中国，作为疫苗试验的一部分，恒河猴已被有意地成功感染。

Moreover, research done by Amanda Melin of the University of Calgary, in Canada, and her colleagues, suggests that many other primates are at risk.

此外，加拿大卡尔加里大学的Amanda Melin和她的同事所做的研究表明，很多其他灵长类动物也面临危险。

The virus infects people by locking onto ACE2, a protein found on the surface membranes of certain cells—particularly those of the airways into the lungs.

这种病毒通过与ACE2结合而感染人类。ACE2是一种蛋白质，存在于某些细胞的细胞膜表面，尤其是那些进入肺部的气道。

The ape version of ACE2 is, Dr Melin has discovered, identical to the human variety, so apes are likely to be particularly susceptible to SARS-COV-2.

Melin博士发现类人猿的ACE2与人类的相同，所以大猩猩可能特别容易感染非典型性肺炎病毒。

Conservationists are worried. "What's nerve-racking about covid-19 is its novelty," notes Richard Wrangham, a chimpanzee expert at Harvard University.

自然资源保护者表示担心。哈佛大学的一名黑猩猩专家Richard Wrangham表示，“covid-19令人伤脑筋的地方在于它的新奇性。”

But primatologists like Dr Wrangham are already familiar with the harm caused by diseases of human origin.

但像Wrangham博士这样的灵长类动物学家已经熟悉了由人类疾病引起的伤害。

Though conservation efforts have protected many apes from habitat loss and poaching,

尽管保护工作已经保护了许多类人猿免受栖息地丧失和偷猎的伤害，

the Faustian bargain made to do this, says Peter Walsh, an ape conservationist at Cambridge University,

但剑桥大学的类人猿保护主义者Peter Walsh表示，

is that the apes are then exposed to potentially deadly viruses.

浮士德式的交易让类人猿暴露于潜在的致命病毒之中。