美国国家公共电台 NPR How Dangerous Is Zika For Babies, Really?

 

DAVID GREENE, HOST: 

Earlier this year, you might remember the Zika virus was spreading through the Americas, and the situation looked dire¹. Brazil was reporting more than a thousand cases of microcephaly, a condition in which babies are born with extremely small heads. And the director of the World Health Organization, Dr. Margaret Chan, was predicting there would be many more cases as the mosquito-borne virus spread.

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MARGARET CHAN: If this pattern is confirmed beyond Latin America and the Caribbean, the world will face a severe public health crisis.

GREENE: Now, that never happened. Most other countries are reporting far fewer cases of microcephaly. But as NPR's Michaeleen Doucleff reports, scientists are just realizing there's a much more widespread issue with Zika.

MICHAELEEN DOUCLEFF, BYLINE²: What's so frightening about the Zika virus is that a very common insect - a tiny mosquito - could deliver such severe birth defects.

THOMAS FRIEDEN: It's horrific. What's happening is that the Zika virus is invading the brain of the developing fetus³. It's destroying the neural⁴ tissue.

DOUCLEFF: That's Dr. Thomas Frieden at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He says the virus stops the brain's growth. This makes the baby's brain very small at birth, but it also disfigures the skull⁵. During normal development, the brain pushes on the skull as the brain grows bigger. But if the brain stops growing, there's no pressure on the skull.

FRIEDEN: And the skull of the infant, the fetus, is collapsing⁶ around the destroyed brain.

DOUCLEFF: But it looks like the chances of this happening are much lower than previously⁷ thought. It looks like the risk is about 3 percent for pregnant women who are infected with Zika. Dr. Karin Nielsen is a pediatrician at UCLA. She's been studying babies with Zika in Brazil.

KARIN NIELSEN: Well, 3 percent is a small amount, you know, of microcephaly. Certainly it's not astronomical⁸ as what had been projected.

DOUCLEFF: She says, so far, only a region in northeast Brazil has reported a high number of microcephaly cases - a few thousand. It's not yet clear why. Everywhere else, the numbers are much lower. Columbia has reported about 70 cases, Guatemala 15, and Bolivia just nine. That's been a relief to public health officials worried about the scale of the epidemic⁹. But Nielsen thinks that relief will be short-lived because another issue has cropped up with Zika.

NIELSEN: There's been tremendous focus in microcephaly, and I think it's wrong to focus on microcephaly because most studies have actually shown that microcephaly is not the most common problem with Zika.

DOUCLEFF: Instead, babies who look healthy at birth are showing up with problems later on. They have terrible neurological problems, seizures¹⁰, brain hemorrhages.

NIELSEN: There's deafness, blindness.

DOUCLEFF: And problems with babies' joints¹¹. Nielsen and her team recently found that nearly 40 percent of babies born with Zika in Rio de Janeiro had one of these problems, even though they didn't have microcephaly. The study needs to be repeated in other cities, but if the findings stand, Nielsen says, Zika's impact on a generation could be far more sweeping¹² than previously thought. Michaeleen Doucleff, NPR News.

1 dire   

adj.可怕的，悲惨的，阴惨的，极端的

参考例句：

• There were dire warnings about the dangers of watching too much TV.曾经有人就看电视太多的危害性提出严重警告。
• We were indeed in dire straits.But we pulled through.那时我们的困难真是大极了，但是我们渡过了困难。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 fetus   

n.胎，胎儿

参考例句：

• In the fetus,blood cells are formed in different sites at different ages.胎儿的血细胞在不同时期生成在不同的部位。
• No one knows why a fetus is not automatically rejected by the mother's immune system. 没有人知道为什么母亲的免疫系统不会自动排斥胎儿。

4 neural   

adj.神经的，神经系统的

参考例句：

• The neural network can preferably solve the non- linear problem.利用神经网络建模可以较好地解决非线性问题。
• The information transmission in neural system depends on neurotransmitters.信息传递的神经途径有赖于神经递质。

5 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

6 collapsing   

压扁[平]，毁坏，断裂

参考例句：

• Rescuers used props to stop the roof of the tunnel collapsing. 救援人员用支柱防止隧道顶塌陷。
• The rocks were folded by collapsing into the center of the trough. 岩石由于坍陷进入凹槽的中心而发生褶皱。

7 previously   

adv.以前，先前（地）

参考例句：

• The bicycle tyre blew out at a previously damaged point.自行车胎在以前损坏过的地方又爆开了。
• Let me digress for a moment and explain what had happened previously.让我岔开一会儿，解释原先发生了什么。

8 astronomical   

adj.天文学的，（数字）极大的

参考例句：

• He was an expert on ancient Chinese astronomical literature.他是研究中国古代天文学文献的专家。
• Houses in the village are selling for astronomical prices.乡村的房价正在飙升。

9 epidemic   

n.流行病；盛行；adj.流行性的，流传极广的

参考例句：

• That kind of epidemic disease has long been stamped out.那种传染病早已绝迹。
• The authorities tried to localise the epidemic.当局试图把流行病限制在局部范围。

10 seizures   

n.起获( seizure的名词复数 )；没收；充公；起获的赃物

参考例句：

• Seizures of illicit drugs have increased by 30% this year. 今年违禁药品的扣押增长了30%。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Other causes of unconsciousness predisposing to aspiration lung abscess are convulsive seizures. 造成吸入性肺脓肿昏迷的其他原因，有惊厥发作。 来自辞典例句

11 joints   

接头( joint的名词复数 )； 关节； 公共场所（尤指价格低廉的饮食和娱乐场所） （非正式）； 一块烤肉 （英式英语）

参考例句：

• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on gas mains. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在煤气的总管道上了。
• Expansion joints of various kinds are fitted on steam pipes. 各种各样的伸缩接头被安装在蒸气管道上了。

12 sweeping   

adj.范围广大的，一扫无遗的

参考例句：

• The citizens voted for sweeping reforms.公民投票支持全面的改革。
• Can you hear the wind sweeping through the branches?你能听到风掠过树枝的声音吗？