2006年VOA标准英语-Indonesian Government to Take Steps to Sto

By Nancy-Amelia Collins
Jakarta
20 February 2006
 

An Indonesian market seller stands near her wares¹ at a traditional wet market in central Jakarta  
  
The Indonesian government says it will take firm action to stop the spread of bird flu, including culling³ sick poultry⁴ and vaccinating⁵ birds near outbreak areas. But international experts warn the government must do more to stop the spread of the H5N1 virus, which has killed at least 19 people in Indonesia since July.

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The Indonesian government said recently it will cull² poultry within a one-kilometer radius⁶ of outbreaks of the deadly bird flu virus, and vaccinate⁷ birds within a three-kilometer radius.

While welcoming the news, Peter Cordingley, the spokesman for the World Health Organization in Asia, says Indonesia must be prepared to take more serious steps to stop the disease spreading.

"I think it's fair to say that Indonesia woke up late in the day to the threat that they had with this infection in their poultry," he said. "They responded pretty well of late but we do know that the virus now is completely embedded⁸ across large parts of Indonesia and it's going to take some pretty radical⁹ steps to get rid of it."

The country has had the largest number of confirmed human bird flu infections and deaths of any country so far this year. And of the 10 cases reported in the first two months of the year, nine were fatal.

In other countries, the bird flu survival rate is close to 50 percent. Cordingley says it is not clear why the death rate in Indonesia is so high. It could be, he says, because victims wait too long to seek treatment.

"It may also be that because of the late delay by the authorities in responding to the virus that it is, in fact, very, very deeply embedded in the environment. But basically, we've put this one, so far, in a box called 'We don't know,'" said Cordingley.

Since it resurfaced in 2003, bird flu has killed more than 90 people, nearly all of them in Asia. There have been about 170 confirmed cases in humans. In recent weeks the virus has spread to birds in Europe, the Middle East, Africa and India. It caused several human deaths in Turkey and at least one in Iraq.

While nearly all humans infected have caught the virus from birds - health experts warn it could mutate to a form easily spread among people, causing a pandemic that could kill millions.

In Indonesia, there have been clusters of bird flu - with several members of a family becoming ill. This worries health officials, who fear the virus is changing. Although the WHO says, so far, that does not seem to be the case, Robert Roder, a specialist in animal viruses for U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization, says health care professionals can not be complacent¹⁰.

"You have to realize there's more avian influenza¹¹ in Indonesia than any other country on earth. And while the virus continues to circulate in [bird] populations which have very close contact with people, then the risk of the virus jumping species to become able to transmit between people is high," said Roder.

To limit the spread of H5N1, WHO spokesman Cordingley says Indonesia must adopt the same tough measures used in Thailand and Vietnam. He credits Thailand's massive poultry culls¹² and its efforts to make sure villagers report sick birds with containing the disease. In Vietnam, Cordingley says, strong surveillance procedures in villages helped prevent any human infections since November.

Both Vietnam and Thailand also have worked hard to tell people not to eat, sell or transport sick poultry, and to keep birds away from homes and children.

The WHO spokesman says it is clear what Indonesia needs to do.

"Surveillance is the number one step," he said. "The number two-step is public education. There is till too much inappropriate behavior all across the region, people interfacing¹³ with poultry, putting their lives at risk and putting their family's lives at risk. And then once they've identified an outbreak, they have to respond immediately, you have to get rid of it as fast as you can, through culling and through areas of limited movement of poultry and human beings."

Indonesian presidential spokesman Andi Mallerangeng says the government will begin an education campaign to go along with efforts to cull and vaccinate poultry.

"One of the things that's being discussed was making [the] public aware about symptoms of bird flu and also how to manage it at their own household and their own villages, including how to take care of the birds. And if you have symptoms, then where to go, which hospital that can be referred to, etcetera," said Mallerangeng.

International experts say nothing is certain about the behavior of the H5N1 virus, and they say all countries need to be alert, not only Indonesia, to prevent a human pandemic. The cost of delaying a response, they say, is a mounting death toll¹⁴.

1 wares   

n. 货物, 商品

参考例句：

• They sold their wares at half-price. 他们的货品是半价出售的。
• The peddler was crying up his wares. 小贩极力夸耀自己的货物。

2 cull   

v.拣选；剔除；n.拣出的东西；剔除

参考例句：

• It is usually good practice to cull the poorest prior to field planting.通常在实践上的好方法是在出圃栽植前挑出最弱的苗木。
• Laura was passing around photographs she'd culled from the albums at home.劳拉正在分发她从家里相册中挑选出的相片。

3 culling   

n.选择，大批物品中剔出劣质货v.挑选，剔除( cull的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The mathematicians turned to culling periodic solutions. 数学家们转而去挑选周期解。 来自辞典例句
• It took us a week to find you, a week of culling out prejudice and hatred. 我们花了一个星期的时间找到你们，把偏见和憎恨剔除出去。 来自演讲部分

4 poultry   

n.家禽，禽肉

参考例句：

• There is not much poultry in the shops. 商店里禽肉不太多。
• What do you feed the poultry on? 你们用什么饲料喂养家禽?

5 vaccinating   

给…接种疫苗( vaccinate的现在分词 )； 注射疫苗，接种疫苗

参考例句：

• At first blush, vaccinating the wolves against rabies seems a simple solution. 乍一看来，为狼群注射防狂犬病疫苗是一种简单的办法。
• Also vaccinating children against misers (measles) has saved many lives. 还有，给儿童进行疫苗接种防止麻疹也挽救了许多生命。

6 radius   

n.半径，半径范围；有效航程，范围，界限

参考例句：

• He has visited every shop within a radius of two miles.周围两英里以内的店铺他都去过。
• We are measuring the radius of the circle.我们正在测量圆的半径。

7 vaccinate   

vt.给…接种疫苗；种牛痘

参考例句：

• Local health officials then can plan the best times to vaccinate people.这样，当地的卫生官员就可以安排最佳时间给人们接种疫苗。
• Doctors vaccinate us so that we do not catch smallpox.医生给我们打预防针使我们不会得天花。

8 embedded   

a.扎牢的

参考例句：

• an operation to remove glass that was embedded in his leg 取出扎入他腿部玻璃的手术
• He has embedded his name in the minds of millions of people. 他的名字铭刻在数百万人民心中。

9 radical   

n.激进份子，原子团，根号；adj.根本的，激进的，彻底的

参考例句：

• The patient got a radical cure in the hospital.病人在医院得到了根治。
• She is radical in her demands.她的要求十分偏激。

10 complacent   

adj.自满的；自鸣得意的

参考例句：

• We must not become complacent the moment we have some success.我们决不能一见成绩就自满起来。
• She was complacent about her achievements.她对自己的成绩沾沾自喜。

11 influenza   

n.流行性感冒，流感

参考例句：

• They took steps to prevent the spread of influenza.他们采取措施
• Influenza is an infectious disease.流感是一种传染病。

12 culls   

n.挑选，剔除( cull的名词复数 )v.挑选，剔除( cull的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• Big business culls the brightest from among college graduates. 大企业从大学毕业生中选拔最优秀的人材。 来自辞典例句

13 interfacing   

衬布，衬头

参考例句：

• Careful study of the data sheets and a programmable input-output port solve most A/D interfacing problems. 若详细研究一下说明书和可编程序的输入／输出端口，则大部分A／D转换器的接口问题都可得到解决。
• Detailed techniques will be presented here to solve all the common interfacing problems. 本书将详细介绍解决所有公共接口问题的技术。

14 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。