VOA标准英语2012--New Dysentery Threat Emerges
时间:2019-01-08 作者:英语课 分类:VOA标准英语2012年(八月)
New Dysentery Threat Emerges
It’s known that clean water and sanitation 1 can bring a sharp decline in dysentery cases in developing countries. But it’s not enough to stop the spread of the disease in countries undergoing rapid development and industrialization.
Dysentery, a diarrheal disease, is primarily associated with developing countries where it kills more than one million people a year. Most of them are young children. The bacterium 2 that generally causes this type of dysentery is known as Shigella flexneri. As nations improve sanitation and provide clean drinking water, the germ affects fewer people.
“For most it’s severe watery 3, and it’s characterized or differentiated 4 from a more mild disease by blood spots. You get blood spots in the diarrhea,” said Professor Nicholas Thompson of Britain’s Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute and lead author of the new dysentery study.
The severity of dysentery can vary.
“If we are well fed and if we are relatively 5 healthy, then it’s a very acute infection. It’s something that we wouldn’t want to get again. But generally, because we have access to clean water and medicines, we recover and we recover perfectly 6 fine. The problem is in countries where perhaps - especially the under fives - there’s a lack of proper nutrition and a lack of access to clean water, then it has much more severe implications,” he said.
Thompson said clean water and sanitation are the most effective ways of treating all diarrheal diseases. But there’s another bacterium that causes dysentery – Shigella sonnei. And it’s spreading despite improvements in water and sanitation.
“[In] industrialized countries or industrializing countries where there are improvements in both sanitation and water, you have a reduction in Shigella flexneri. So that’s one of the bacteria that causes bacterial 7 dysentery. But you get an increase in Shigella sonnei. That’s the species or the type of Shigella that we’ve studied. And we think, and other people think as well, that this is associated actually with improvements in water quality,” he said.
That begs the question why? Why would Shigella sonnei affect more people if the water’s cleaner? It’s because cleaning up drinking water also gets rid of a harmless common bacterium called Plesiomonas Shigelloides. To the immune system, the outer coat of that bacterium looks identical to Shigella sonnei, and antibodies are created to fight it. So its presence helps create somewhat of a natural immunity 8 against the dysentery bacterium. And without that, in countries where overall health is poor, a tougher strain of dysentery can spread and is spreading.
Thompson said, “Luckily there are still alternative antibiotics 9, and certainly antibiotics in combination can be used against Shigella sonnei. What we’re saying and what we’re showing is that there is an increasing trend of this particular bacterium towards acquiring genes 10 that make them increasingly resistant 11 to drugs used in therapy. If this trend continues, there will come a time when none of the antibiotics that are available to us will work on this bacterium.”
He added that a vaccine 12 will eventually be needed. Research is currently underway. He says the fact that the bacterium has a stable outer coat could help scientists develop a vaccine more quickly. It’s believed Shigella sonnei first emerged in Europe about 500 years ago. Contamination often occurs from not washing hands and through contaminated water.
- The location is exceptionally poor,viewed from the sanitation point.从卫生角度来看,这个地段非常糟糕。
- Many illnesses are the result,f inadequate sanitation.许多疾病都来源于不健全的卫生设施。
- The bacterium possibly goes in the human body by the mouth.细菌可能通过口进入人体。
- A bacterium is identified as the cause for his duodenal ulcer.一种细菌被断定为造成他十二指肠溃疡的根源。
- In his watery eyes there is an expression of distrust.他那含泪的眼睛流露出惊惶失措的神情。
- Her eyes became watery because of the smoke.因为烟熏,她的双眼变得泪汪汪的。
- The development of mouse kidney tubules requires two kinds of differentiated cells. 小鼠肾小管的发育需要有两种分化的细胞。
- In this enlargement, barley, alfalfa, and sugar beets can be differentiated. 在这张放大的照片上,大麦,苜蓿和甜菜都能被区分开。
- The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
- The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。
- The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
- Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。
- 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。
- The law gives public schools immunity from taxation.法律免除公立学校的纳税义务。
- He claims diplomatic immunity to avoid being arrested.他要求外交豁免以便避免被捕。
- the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century 20世纪抗生素的发现
- The doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 医生给我开了抗生素。
- You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因,所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
- Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪
- Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
- They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。