DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Ebola and Marburg Vaccines Protect Monk

DEVELOPMENT REPORT - Ebola and Marburg Vaccines² Protect Monkeys, Maybe Also People
By Jill Moss³

Broadcast: Monday, June 20, 2005

I'm Gwen Outen with the VOA Special English Development Report.

 
To avoid infection, medical workers must take special safety measures when they handle victims of Ebola or Marburg virus.
Medical researchers have developed vaccines that appear to protect monkeys from the Ebola and Marburg viruses. The researchers say a single injection proved one hundred percent effective.

Scientists from the Public Health Agency of Canada developed the vaccines. They had assistance from researchers at the United States Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases. The study appeared in Nature Medicine.

The researchers say the study with twelve macaque monkeys suggests that the vaccines might also be able to protect people. Ebola and Marburg are always deadly to monkeys and other non-human primates⁴. In humans, the viruses can kill eighty to ninety percent of those who become infected.

A recent outbreak of Marburg in Angola has killed more then three hundred fifty people. Vaccines could help prevent outbreaks. They could also be used in case of biological terrorism.

The researchers took one gene⁵ from the Ebola or Marburg virus and placed it into another virus to use in the experimental vaccines. They say the vaccine¹ itself cannot cause disease. But it does cause the body to react in a way that would protect people if they ever really became infected with Ebola or Marburg.

Ebola and Marburg are spread through bodily fluids. Both diseases cause high temperatures, organ failure and severe bleeding. There are no cures.

Both viruses spread from time to time in central Africa. Scientists recorded the first Ebola outbreak in nineteen seventy-six in Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo. Laboratories in Europe first recognized Marburg virus in monkeys in nineteen sixty-seven.

The vaccines must go through several years of testing before they can be approved for human use.

If so, they could be included one day in a program to vaccinate⁶ millions of people against deadly diseases. Members of the World Health Organization approved a Global Immunization Strategy at a meeting in Geneva in May. The aim is to expand vaccination⁷ programs.

Vaccine-preventable diseases kill more than two million people per year, mostly children. One goal of the new policy is to reach at least eighty percent vaccination coverage⁸ in every area of a country by two thousand ten.

This VOA Special English Development Report was written by Jill Moss.  I'm Gwen Outen.

1 vaccine   

n.牛痘苗，疫苗；adj.牛痘的，疫苗的

参考例句：

• The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives.脊髓灰质炎疫苗挽救了数以百万计的生命。
• She takes a vaccine against influenza every fall.她每年秋季接种流感疫苗。

2 vaccines   

疫苗，痘苗( vaccine的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• His team are at the forefront of scientific research into vaccines. 他的小组处于疫苗科研的最前沿。
• The vaccines were kept cool in refrigerators. 疫苗放在冰箱中冷藏。

3 moss   

n.苔，藓，地衣

参考例句：

• Moss grows on a rock.苔藓生在石头上。
• He was found asleep on a pillow of leaves and moss.有人看见他枕着树叶和苔藓睡着了。

4 primates   

primate的复数

参考例句：

• Primates are alert, inquisitive animals. 灵长目动物是机灵、好奇的动物。
• Consciousness or cerebration has been said to have emerged in the evolution of higher primates. 据说意识或思考在较高级灵长类的进化中已出现。

5 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

6 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。

7 vaccination   

n.接种疫苗，种痘

参考例句：

• Vaccination is a preventive against smallpox.种痘是预防天花的方法。
• Doctors suggest getting a tetanus vaccination every ten years.医生建议每十年注射一次破伤风疫苗。

8 coverage   

n.报导，保险范围，保险额，范围，覆盖

参考例句：

• There's little coverage of foreign news in the newspaper.报纸上几乎没有国外新闻报道。
• This is an insurance policy with extensive coverage.这是一项承保范围广泛的保险。