美国英语听力80篇2 Lesson22

[00:06.95]Last summer, Americans in the eastern state of New York were threatened by a disease 2 never before seen in the country--West Nile Fever.

[00:19.59]The disease usually is not serious in people.

[00:23.61]But it can cause swelling 3 of the brain.

[00:26.85]The disease killed seven people and made sixty-two others sick in and around New York City.

[00:35.42]Today, officials say more than 2,000 other people could also have been infected,

[00:42.95]but showed little or no signs of being sick.

[00:46.13]The West Nile virus 4 also killed thousands of birds in the area.

[00:52.90]West Nile Fever is carried by birds.

[00:57.26]The disease is then passed to mosquitoes 6 when the insects bite birds that have the virus.

[01:04.97]People become infected when mosquitoes bite them.

[01:08.96]When the disease was first discovered in New York,

[01:14.03]health officials immediately began efforts to kill mosquitoes.

[01:19.07]They hoped the threat 1 would end when the mosquitoes became inactive during the winter.

[01:26.10]Last month, however, they reported that the virus has survived.

[01:31.12]Health officials found inactive mosquitoes still infected with the disease.

[01:37.46]And they found a bird killed by the disease.

[01:41.30]This year, health officials have started a campaign 7 in the eastern United 8 States to teach people how to prevent being bitten by mosquitoes.

[01:53.32]Health officials say this could be the start of an infectious 9 disease danger in the United States

[02:01.03]that has been present for years around the world.

[02:03.98]The World Health Organization says 500,000,000 people around the world each year are infected with sicknesses carried by mosquitoes,

[02:15.60]These include dengue fever, malaria,yellow fever and brain fevers such as West Nile.

[02:24.12]More than 2,000,000 people die of these diseases 10, many of them young children.

[02:32.27]One example of the increase in these diseases is dengue fever.

[02:37.26]In the 1950s, the serious form of the disease infectedabout 1,000 people each year.

[02:45.80]Today, more than 500,000 people are infected each year.

[02:51.34]About 24,000 people die of the disease each year.

[02:56.33]The W-H-O organized a campaign to kill the mosquitoes that carry the sickness.

[03:03.20]But experts say it was stopped too soon.

[03:07.48]As a result, dengue fever has spread through North and South America.

[03:13.93]The mosquito 5 that carries dengue fever has been found in eleven states in the United States.

[03:21.40]There is no medicine to prevent dengue and West Nile fevers.

[03:26.68]Health experts say everyone should take steps to prevent mosquito bites.

[03:32.43]These include removing containers of water where mosquitoes could lay their eggs.

[03:39.61]Wearing clothing that covers the arms and legs.