VOA常速英语2014--专家称贫困是埃博拉疫情猖獗的原因之一

 

Poverty Helps Fuel Ebola Outbreak, Experts Say 专家称贫困是埃博拉疫情猖獗的原因之一

Ebola spreads through contact with the blood and fluids of infected people. But experts say the outbreak is also being fueled by poverty and poor governance.

In West Africa, they are literally¹ building the facilities to handle Ebola from scratch.  Improvised tents house quarantined Ebola patients.

Many hospitals in the region lack basic equipment, says Tulane University virus expert Dr. Daniel Bausch. He spoke² to VOA by Skype.

“You go to a hospital in Sierra Leone or Liberia, and it’s not unusual for a healthcare worker to say, ‘We don’t have gloves.’ Or, ‘We don’t have clean needles,'"said Bausch.

Poor health systems plague the continent’s other Ebola hotspots, too. Bausch says there's a common factor.  

“All of the large outbreaks of Ebola or its sister virus, Marburg, happen in places where social and political unrest over the years have decimated the public health system," he said.

The war-torn Democratic Republic of Congo has seen six Ebola outbreaks.  Civil wars wrecked³ health systems in Sierra Leone and Liberia in the 90s and 2000s.

Meanwhile, working in neighboring Guinea, Bausch watched paved roads erode⁴ to dirt paths and towns slide deeper into poverty under the weight of dictatorship and corruption⁵.

“That period of not-responsible government degraded the systems, public health and otherwise in Guinea, and I think did have a role in leaving the country open to this sort of epidemic," he said.

Like the health systems, many people in Ebola-stricken regions lack the resources to get by. And that puts them at risk.

As they cut down forests for charcoal⁶ and to grow food, Bausch says they are driving the bats thought to carry the virus out into the open.

“With deforestation, bats that ordinarily would be foraging⁷ for fruit within fairly remote areas inside the forest now are forced to come out and look for fruit, for example, mango trees that may be in the proximity⁸ of humans and bring them closer to humans and have more of a chance of introduction of the virus," said Bausch.

And poverty is also driving people deeper into the forest in search of food, including so-called "bushmeat," which is known to carry the virus.

It doesn’t have to be this way, says Dr. William Karesh with the EcoHealth Alliance, also speaking via Skype.

“You have outbreaks in Uganda and they have invested in their health systems and they have invested in their education systems. So, of course, they still have these outbreaks but they’re controlled very rapidly," said Karesh.

Once this outbreak ends, Karesh says, health officials need to start preparing for the next one with better labs and hospitals, and more public information on how to prevent infection.

“We can’t stop earthquakes, but we can prevent a lot of the damage of earthquakes. And it’s the same with these emerging diseases and Ebola," he said.

If governments invest in better education and healthcare systems, he says, the next outbreak could be less deadly.

1 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

2 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

3 wrecked   

adj.失事的，遇难的

参考例句：

• the hulk of a wrecked ship 遇难轮船的残骸
• the salvage of the wrecked tanker 对失事油轮的打捞

4 erode   

v.侵蚀，腐蚀，使...减少、减弱或消失

参考例句：

• Once exposed,soil is quickly eroded by wind and rain.一旦暴露在外，土壤很快就会被风雨侵蚀。
• Competition in the financial marketplace has eroded profits.金融市场的竞争降低了利润。

5 corruption   

n.腐败，堕落，贪污

参考例句：

• The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
• The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。

6 charcoal   

n.炭，木炭，生物炭

参考例句：

• We need to get some more charcoal for the barbecue.我们烧烤需要更多的碳。
• Charcoal is used to filter water.木炭是用来过滤水的。

7 foraging   

v.搜寻（食物），尤指动物觅（食）( forage的现在分词 )；（尤指用手）搜寻（东西）

参考例句：

• They eke out a precarious existence foraging in rubbish dumps. 他们靠在垃圾场捡垃圾维持着朝不保夕的生活。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The campers went foraging for wood to make a fire. 露营者去搜寻柴木点火。 来自辞典例句

8 proximity   

n.接近，邻近

参考例句：

• Marriages in proximity of blood are forbidden by the law.法律规定禁止近亲结婚。
• Their house is in close proximity to ours.他们的房子很接近我们的。