Tuberculosis1

 

Broadcast: May 14, 2003
By Karen Leggett

This is the VOA Special English Health Report.
One-third of all the people in the world are infected with tuberculosis¹, or TB, a disease² caused by bacteria in the lungs. Each year, eight-million infected people become sick with the disease. Someone dies of TB every fifteen seconds--more than two-million deaths a year. But it does not have to be this way.
Let us imagine a young mother in a poor community in India. She has been coughing a lot during the past two weeks. Sometimes she coughs up blood, and it hurts when she coughs. But she has three small children and a husband to care for. She has all the signs of tuberculosis. Yet she believes she cannot take time to see a doctor. So she just keeps on coughing.
Every time she coughs, though, the germs³ spread through the air. Her children, her husband and other people breathe that air. They too may become infected. Sometimes the bacteria begin to grow right away, and a newly⁴ infected person develops active tuberculosis.
This happens mostly in people whose bodies are not strong enough to fight disease. These include young children, old people and people already sick with other diseases⁵. Even in strong and healthy people, the bacteria stay in the body and can become active later.
STOP TB is an international project to fight this ancient disease. One goal is to expand the use of the most successful treatment method known. The method is called DOTS, for Directly Observed Therapy⁶, Short-course.
This means people who have TB see a health care worker every day, or several times a week, to receive their medicine. Health officials say ten million patients around the world have been cured by DOTS. In India alone, fifty-thousand people start DOTS every month.
There are skin tests to tell if a person is infected with TB. Doctors urge people to go for treatment right away if they have had a cough for more than two weeks, if they sometimes cough up blood, and if their chest hurts when they cough.
X-ray picture of a tuberculosis infection Up to six months of treatment may be needed. It is important to kill all the TB bacteria in a person's body. Bacteria that survive can develop resistance⁷ to drugs -- a growing problem with bacterial⁸ infections in general. So this is why doctors want to make sure people take all their medicine.
This VOA Special English Health Report was written by Karen Leggett.

1. tuberculosis [tju7bE:kju5lEusIs] n. 肺结核

1 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

2 disease   

n.疾病，弊端

参考例句：

• The doctors are trying to stamp out the disease.医生正在尽力消灭这种疾病。
• He fought against the disease for a long time.他同疾病做了长时间的斗争。

3 germs   

n.微生物( germ的名词复数 )；病菌；起源；发端

参考例句：

• Dirty hands can be a breeding ground for germs. 脏手会滋生病菌。
• The air is full of millions of invisible germs. 空气中充满了许多看不见的细菌。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 newly   

adv.新近，最近；重新，再度；以新的方式

参考例句：

• Have you reviewed for this newly published novel?你给这本新出版的小说写书评了吗？
• It is a newly planted tree and it has not established yet.这是一颗新栽的树，还没有扎下根来。

5 diseases   

n.疾病( disease的名词复数 )；弊端；恶疾；痼疾

参考例句：

• Smoking is a causative factor in several major diseases. 抽烟是引起几种严重疾病的病因。
• The illness frequently coexists with other chronic diseases. 这种病往往与其他慢性病同时存在。

6 therapy   

n.治疗；疗法

参考例句：

• The doctor said she should be given a physical therapy.医生说她应该进行理疗。
• She will need to have the therapy repeated every few months.她将需要每隔几个月就进行一次治疗。

7 resistance   

n.抵抗力，反抗，反抗行动；阻力，电阻；反对；adj.抵抗的

参考例句：

• Very little resistance was put up by the enemy.敌人没怎么进行抵抗。
• An aircraft has to overcome the resistance of the air.飞机须克服空气的阻力。

8 bacterial   

a.细菌的

参考例句：

• Bacterial reproduction is accelerated in weightless space. 在失重的空间，细菌繁殖加快了。
• Brain lesions can be caused by bacterial infections. 大脑损伤可能由细菌感染引起。