科技动态:流感是如何通过喷嚏传染的（在线收听）

This man is putting pepper up his nose. Why? So he can sneeze. He is a volunteer in a study being conducted by scientists in Singapore who want to establish how the influenza virus is transmitted through the air. Cater their experiments are the specialized mirror and a high-speed camera which together can record density variations in gases. Virologist, Dr. Julien Teng says the experiments could lead to new information to help doctors deal more effectively with viral outbreaks like the swine flu pandemic of 2009.

一名男子正在把辣椒放进鼻子里。这是为什么？这样他就能打喷嚏了。原来他是新加坡科学家所进行实验中的一名志愿者，这些科学家的研究目标是了解流感病毒在空气中是如何传播的。这项实验还配备有特殊化镜子和高倍速相机。这种相机能记录病毒密度在空气中的变化。病毒学家Julien Teng博士表示，这项研究所得出的最新数据将能够帮助医生更有效地应对09年猪流感这类的病毒爆发。

"During SARS and H5N1 and H1N1 pandemic, there is a lot of concerns about coughings, sneezing and whether we should wear masks, different types of masks extra,extra. But we realize that there is no basic knowledge, no basic information about how normal exhale flows actually have the potential to transmit infection. I mean the infections we are talking about are the air-borne infections."

在非典，H5N1，H1N1病毒流行期间，人们很在意咳嗽打喷嚏的声音，是否要带面罩，戴什么种类的面罩等问题。但我们发现人们没有基本知识，他们并不知道，实际上呼气就有传染疾病的可能。我是说通过空气途经传染的疾病。

According to the centers for disease control, influenza is primarily transmitted from person to person through sneezing or coughing, but little is known about how far a virus can travel through the air or whether it can be transmitted by other means, by laughing or crying perhaps, or simply breathing. Dr. Teng is looking for solid scientific data.

疾病控制中心告诉我们，流感通过人际间的喷嚏和咳嗽传播的可能性更大，但病毒在空气中能够传播的范围和病毒是否能够通过其他形式例如大笑，哭泣或是呼吸传播还不得而知。Teng博士正在进行科学验证。

What we try to get is a general idea of, OK, a cough will travel so far from most people but not be on the certain point from most people. OK, and that cough will have a certain amount of air from most people, so obviously we are not 100% correct. But if you can think about it and it's very hard to cough with no air coming out of your mouth. Because you can determine limits and boundaries of your data interpretation. And that's the same for all science. You know there are many cases where you can find exceptions but science doesn't stop because of that.

我们试图了解大多数人咳嗽病毒传播的距离，但只是大多数人而不会是所有人。了解大多数人咳嗽后空气中的病毒密度，少数特例除外，因此我们的数据不会是百分之百适用于所有人。另外，如果你想一想就会知道，咳嗽肯定要有空气从口腔中流出。在解释数据的时候，需要考虑到这些限制条件。所有的科学实验都是如此。你知道有很多特殊情况但这并不能够阻挡科学的进步。

The study won't stop untill June, 2012. Dr. Teng hopes that by then he will have enough data to answer so many important questions. How much distance should seperate patients in a hospital? Who and how many passengers on an aircraft should be quarantined? How better can face masks be used? For Dr. Julien Teng, it's likely to take a great deal more coughing and sneezing to find out.

这项研究会持续到2012年6月。Teng博士希望那时他将有足够的数据来回答这些重要的问题。医院中的病人应该隔离多远距离？病患待过的飞机上有多少乘客应该隔离检查？如何更好地用面罩来预防疾病？这些问题对于Julien Teng博士来说可能需要更多的咳嗽和喷嚏数据才能得出答案。