PBS高端访谈:科技正在转化为简易的医疗急救措施

 　　GWEN IFILL: When it comes to global health, much attention is now focused on Ebola. But more routine diseases take a toll¹ on the world's poorest people every day.

　　In Seattle, there's a not-for-profit group trying to develop new tools and medicines to combat them.

　　The "NewsHour" 's Cat Wise has the story, another report in our Breakthroughs series, which explores inventions and innovation both here and abroad.

　　GLENN AUSTIN, Group Leader, PATH: All we need is salt, water, and electricity to make this product work.

　　CAT WISE: With just those three ingredients, this small device produces concentrated chlorine, a powerful disinfectant. The man behind the product, Glenn Austin, says it took years to develop, but now there is a greater need for chlorine in parts of West Africa because of the Ebola outbreak, and this device may one day soon be helping² to meet that demand.

　　GLENN AUSTIN: We are really thinking about how quickly we can move, because there's a sense of urgency here. Chlorine is probably the most widely accepted universal disinfectant. It's great. You can treat water with it and you can treat surfaces with it. And that is the preferred application for infection control and disease outbreak control.

　　CAT WISE: The Electrochlorinator is just one of the many products turned out by a global health nonprofit in Seattle, Washington, called PATH. For more than 30 years, the organization has been developing innovative³ medical devices, drugs, vaccines⁵, and diagnostic equipment for use in low-income countries.

　　STEVE DAVIS, President and CEO, PATH: The fact that some people have access to lifesaving devices and other people don't is simply wrong, it's unfair, and it's correctable.

　　CAT WISE: Steve Davis is president and CEO of PATH. He says one of the organization's most successful products could come in handy in fighting the Ebola outbreak if a vaccine⁴ using a live virus, that has to be kept cold, is developed.

　　It's a tiny heat-sensing sticker that tells health workers if a vaccine is no longer effective. It's been used on five billion vaccine vials over the past two decades.

　　STEVE DAVIS: It turns out, in food, in frozen chicken, they have something on the package to show that if it had been thawed⁶ or unthawed. So we took that idea and now, by having a vaccine vial monitor, this little dot, we can actually tell whether that vaccine has got too hot, and therefore we wouldn't use it if it's changed colors.

　　And so that's — that's been really critical, saved literally⁷ millions of lives.

　　CAT WISE: PATH got its start in the 1970s bringing reproductive health technology to rural China. Today, the organization has 1,200 employees, a mix of scientists, engineers, doctors, lawyers, businesspeople, and health policy experts.

　　They work in more than 70 countries on issues such as clean water and sanitation⁸, maternal⁹ and newborn health and neglected diseases. They often collaborate¹⁰ with public and private sector¹¹ partners on the development, funding and distribution of products.

　　MIKE EISENSTEIN, Shop Manager, PATH: So, welcome, this is PATH's product development shop.

　　CAT WISE: Mike Eisenstein manages the workshop where many of PATH's health tools have emerged after months, sometimes years of research, development, testing, and old-fashioned tinkering.

　　MIKE EISENSTEIN: We're looking for solutions that are sustainable, that are easy to use. They're low-cost, very sturdy, very affordable¹². So we try and mimic¹³ all the settings where they will be used, how are the technologies we develop going to react to dust, to high humidity, to temperature, things like that.

　　CAT WISE: Eisenstein says the end users, often women and children, are what drive the inventions and designs. He showed us how that played out during the development of a new version of a decades-old female contraceptive.

　　MIKE EISENSTEIN: The challenge in this particular case was, really, diaphragms come in many different sizes, and in developing countries, it's especially hard, you know, finding a doctor and then getting sized for a specific diaphragm.

　　What we did was, we designed a diaphragm with the idea of it fits most of the female population.

　　CAT WISE: Another tool developed in the workshop project is the Uniject, aimed at low-skilled health workers administering shots. Steve Brooke was one of the product developers.

　　STEVE BROOKE, Commercialization Advisor¹⁴, PATH: It's unique in that its completely self-contained. The dose of vaccine or the lifesaving medicine is already filled in this little bubble.

　　So the health care worker doesn't have to measure the dose, take the time to find a different syringe. Once you have made the injection, it's designed such that you cannot refill it, because reuse of syringes is a significant problem in developing countries.

　　CAT WISE: Down the hall from the workshop is PATH's lab, where scientist Manjari Lal is developing methods to freeze-dry certain vaccines and drugs. The resulting tablets, which would eliminate the need for refrigeration and skilled health workers to administer shots or I.V.s, could be a game-changer, according to Lal.

　　MANJARI LAL, Technical Officer, PATH: We need to conduct some clinical studies to really demonstrate if this technology has value. But, yes, I mean, this is easy, packaging-wise, administration-wise, and storage, especially in places like sub-Saharan Africa or Africa in general, where the temperatures run so high, if we have a product which is stable, heat-stable, I mean, it can indeed save a lot of lives.

　　CAT WISE: Saving through the use of innovation was a big theme at a recent PATH event honoring supporters and donors¹⁵.

　　During his speech, CEO Steve Davis spoke¹⁶ about the need for better health systems in the world's poorest countries.

　　STEVE DAVIS: Health inequity is generating all sorts of challenges to economic development and it's generating a lot of political instability, and we have to address that. And certainly the situation in West Africa in Ebola is demonstrating that very, very much.

　　CAT WISE: But while Davis says the Ebola outbreak deserves attention and better resources from the international community, he worries that other longstanding global health problems will be overshadowed.

　　STEVE DAVIS: We have to keep in mind that far, far more children and women and families will suffer from and die from other diseases far more than Ebola. And that's because malaria¹⁷ and diarrhea and pneumonia¹⁸ and other things are killing¹⁹ far more people in that region.

　　A lot of the work to support and help all those other conditions has come to almost a complete stop.

　　CAT WISE: Over the coming months, Davis says PATH will continue to stay engaged in the Ebola outbreak, while launching a major new effort to eliminate malaria, a disease that kills hundreds of thousands each year.

　　CAT WISE for the "PBS NewsHour" in Seattle.

　　GWEN IFILL: Online, see PATH CEO Steve Davis' idea for another medical breakthrough. That video is on the Rundown.

1 toll   

n.过路(桥)费；损失，伤亡人数；v.敲(钟)

参考例句：

• The hailstone took a heavy toll of the crops in our village last night.昨晚那场冰雹损坏了我们村的庄稼。
• The war took a heavy toll of human life.这次战争夺去了许多人的生命。

2 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

3 innovative   

adj.革新的，新颖的，富有革新精神的

参考例句：

• Discover an innovative way of marketing.发现一个创新的营销方式。
• He was one of the most creative and innovative engineers of his generation.他是他那代人当中最富创造性与革新精神的工程师之一。

4 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。

5 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。

6 thawed   

解冻

参考例句：

• The little girl's smile thawed the angry old man. 小姑娘的微笑使发怒的老头缓和下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He thawed after sitting at a fire for a while. 在火堆旁坐了一会儿，他觉得暖和起来了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 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。

8 sanitation   

n.公共卫生，环境卫生，卫生设备

参考例句：

• 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。

9 maternal   

adj.母亲的，母亲般的，母系的，母方的

参考例句：

• He is my maternal uncle.他是我舅舅。
• The sight of the hopeless little boy aroused her maternal instincts.那个绝望的小男孩的模样唤起了她的母性。

10 collaborate   

vi.协作，合作；协调

参考例句：

• The work gets done more quickly when we collaborate.我们一旦合作，工作做起来就更快了。
• I would ask you to collaborate with us in this work.我们愿意请你们在这项工作中和我们合作。

11 sector   

n.部门，部分；防御地段，防区；扇形

参考例句：

• The export sector will aid the economic recovery. 出口产业将促进经济复苏。
• The enemy have attacked the British sector.敌人已进攻英国防区。

12 affordable   

adj.支付得起的，不太昂贵的

参考例句：

• The rent for the four-roomed house is affordable.四居室房屋的房租付得起。
• There are few affordable apartments in big cities.在大城市中没有几所公寓是便宜的。

13 mimic   

v.模仿，戏弄；n.模仿他人言行的人

参考例句：

• A parrot can mimic a person's voice.鹦鹉能学人的声音。
• He used to mimic speech peculiarities of another.他过去总是模仿别人讲话的特点。

14 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

15 donors   

n.捐赠者( donor的名词复数 )；献血者；捐血者；器官捐献者

参考例句：

• Please email us to be removed from our active list of blood donors. 假如你想把自己的名字从献血联系人名单中删去，请给我们发电子邮件。
• About half this amount comes from individual donors and bequests. 这笔钱大约有一半来自个人捐赠及遗赠。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 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。

17 malaria   

n.疟疾

参考例句：

• He had frequent attacks of malaria.他常患疟疾。
• Malaria is a kind of serious malady.疟疾是一种严重的疾病。

18 pneumonia   

n.肺炎

参考例句：

• Cage was struck with pneumonia in her youth.凯奇年轻时得过肺炎。
• Pneumonia carried him off last week.肺炎上星期夺去了他的生命。

19 killing   

n.巨额利润；突然赚大钱，发大财

参考例句：

• Investors are set to make a killing from the sell-off.投资者准备清仓以便大赚一笔。
• Last week my brother made a killing on Wall Street.上个周我兄弟在华尔街赚了一大笔。