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UN Meeting Will Address World's Most Deadly Infectious Disease
From VOA Learning English, this is the Health & Lifestyle report.
Some diseases receive a lot of attention in the media. Viruses like Ebola Virus Disease, HIV and influenza1 are just a few examples.
However, none of them is the number-one infectious disease killer2 around the world.
Scientists say that tuberculosis3, or TB, is the deadliest infectious disease. The World Health Organization reports that, in 2017, 10 million people were sickened with TB, and 1.6 million people died from the disease.
The United Nations General Assembly hopes to bring attention to the problem by holding its first-ever, high-level meeting on tuberculosis. The meeting will take place on Wednesday, September 26, at the UN’s headquarters in New York City.
One goal of the talks is to expand efforts to end the disease and help those affected4.
One such person living with TB is 54-year-old Stella Malgas of South Africa. Life has not been easy for her. She takes nine pills a day for her condition, far less than the 27 she used to take each day. She is unemployed5, suffers from multidrug-resistant6 tuberculosis and has HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
She says people she knows, even close family members, keep a distance from her.
Tuberculosis may not get the kind of attention that other diseases do. However, health experts warn that we should not ignore TB.
Hank Tomlinson heads the Division of Global HIV and TB at America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). He says that TB is a major health threat.
"It's the No. 1 infectious disease killer. And it kills more people now annually7 than HIV. There are about 1.7 million deaths each year from tuberculosis. And it's a threat everywhere because of the way it's spread, and the ease with which it is spread."
Tuberculosis is a bacterial8 disease that spreads through the air. The people most affected are those who live and work closely with other people in small spaces and those with weak natural defenses for fighting disease.
Health experts at the CDC say that about 2 billion people are infected with tuberculosis worldwide. Rebecca Martin is Director of the CDC’s Center for Global Health. She says that preventative treatment is most important, especially for those with the latent, or inactive, form of TB.
"Getting them on treatment which is less expensive, a shorter course, and the adherence9 is much higher, we can stop going on to active TB, which leads to spread of more TB."
The CDC website explains the difference between latent and active forms of the disease. It says “Persons with latent TB infection do not feel sick and do not have any symptoms. They are infected with M. tuberculosis, but do not have TB disease. Persons with latent TB infection are not infectious and cannot spread TB infection to others.”
To treat the disease, doctors can advise patients to take medicines. But if patients do not complete their treatment, drug resistance can develop. As Hank Tomlinson notes, this makes treating TB even more difficult.
"These are variants11 of tuberculosis that are severe. They don't work with the common four-drug treatment. They are resistant to one or more of those drugs and they require a different, more challenging course of treatment for a patient."
Scientists and health officials hope that the high-level U.N. meeting will strengthen the fight against TB and possibly save millions of lives.
And that’s the Health & Lifestyle report.
I’m Anna Matteo.
Words in This Story
pill – n. a usually medicinal or dietary preparation in a small rounded mass to be swallowed whole
annually – adv. once a year : each year
expensive – adj. costing a lot of money
adherence – n. the act of doing what is required by
symptom – n. a change in the body or mind which indicates that a disease is present
variant10 – n. strains of a disease
challenging – adj. testing one's ability, endurance, etc
这里是VOA慢速英语健康生活报道。
一些疾病得到了媒体的大量关注。比如埃博拉出血热、艾滋病病毒和流感等，这只是几个例子。
但是，这些疾病都不是世界上最致命的传染病。
科学家表示，结核病（简称TB）是最致命的传染病。世界卫生组织的报告显示，2017年全球新增结核病患者1000万人，因结核病死亡人数为160万人。
联合国大会希望通过举行首次高级别结核病会议来引起大家对这一疾病的关注。该会议将于本周三，也就是9月26日在联合国纽约总部举行。
会议的其中一个目标是加强努力，终结结核病并帮助感染者。
54岁的斯特拉·马尔加斯是一名来自南非的结核病患者。对她来说生活并不容易。她每天服用9片药来控制病情，而这一剂量远远少于她此前每天服用的27片药。她目前失业，患有多重抗药性结核病，还携带引发艾滋病的艾滋病病毒。
她说，她认识的所有人，甚至是关系密切的家庭成员，都会和她保持距离。
结核病的关注度可能不及其他疾病。但是，健康专家警告称，我们不应该忽视结核病。
汉克·汤姆林森是美国疾病控制与预防中心（简称CDC）全球艾滋病和结核病处处长。他表示，结核病是重大的健康威胁。
“结核病是全球传染病的头号杀手。该疾病每年的致死率高于艾滋病病毒。每年有约170万人死于结核病。因为这一疾病的传播途径和易传染性，其对所有地区均构成威胁。”
结核病是一种通过空气传播的细菌性疾病。最易感染人群为在狭小空间集体生活和工作的人群，以及对抗疾病的自然免疫力低下的人群。
美国疾病控制与预防中心的健康专家表示，目前全球有约20亿人感染结核病。丽贝卡·马丁是美国疾病控制与预防中心全球健康中心的主任。她表示，预防治疗最为重要，对那些患有隐藏性结核病或非活动性结核病的人来说这点尤为重要。
“这类治疗的花费较低、疗程较短且依从性更高，这样我们就可以阻止活动性结核病，因为活动性结核病会导致结核病进一步传播。”
美国疾病控制与预防中心官网解释了隐藏性结核病和活动性结核病之间的差异。即“隐藏性结核病患者不会感觉不舒服，也不会出现任何相关症状。他们感染了结核分枝杆菌，但并没有感染结核病。隐藏性结核病患者不具传染性，不会将结核病传染给其他人。”
医生可以建议患者服用药物来治疗结核病。但是如果患者没有完成治疗，那就会产生耐药性。汉克·汤姆林森指出，这使治疗结核病变得更加困难。
“这些变异的结核病非常严重。常见的‘四药联用’治疗方案不起作用。变异后的疾病对一种或多种药物有耐药性，需要为患者提供不同的、更具挑战性的治疗方案。”
科学家和卫生官员希望这一高级别联合国会议能加强对抗结核病的力度，也许可以挽救数百万条生命。
收听单词发音 |
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influenza
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| n.流行性感冒，流感 | |
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killer
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| n.杀人者，杀人犯，杀手，屠杀者 | |
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tuberculosis
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| n.结核病，肺结核 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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unemployed
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| adj.失业的，没有工作的；未动用的，闲置的 | |
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resistant
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| adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的 | |
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annually
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| adv.一年一次，每年 | |
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bacterial
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| a.细菌的 | |
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adherence
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| n.信奉，依附，坚持，固着 | |
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variant
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| adj.不同的，变异的；n.变体，异体 | |
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variants
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| n.变体( variant的名词复数 )；变种；变型；（词等的）变体 | |
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