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患者、医生与科研人员需迅速应对细菌抗药性

The World Health Organization issued a wake-up call April 30 when it reported that we have now entered a post-antibiotic¹ period. What this means is that some common bacterial² infections no longer respond as quickly, or at all, to drugs that used to contain them.

世界卫生组织4月30日发表的报告警告说，人类目前进入了后抗生素时代。这意味着，控制某些常见细菌感染的药物可能不会这么快就能见效甚至已经毫无作用了。

Bacteria are tiny living beings...neither plant nor animal. Some, like the bacteria in yogurt, are good for us, but others are deadly.

细菌是微小的生物，既不是植物，也不是动物。有些细菌，比如酸奶里的细菌是好细菌，但有些则可以致人死命。

Like the World Health Organization, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has found that some bacteria no longer respond to antibiotics³ like they used to. Dr. Laurie Hicks is with the CDC. “We are seeing greater than 2 million episodes of antibiotic resistant⁴ infections each year in the U.S. alone. Twenty-three thousand of these episodes result in death," said Hicks.

和世界卫生组织(WHO)一样，美国疾病控制中心(CDC)也发现，某些细菌不再对抗生素做出反应了。疾控中心的劳莉·希克斯博士说： “我们观察到，仅在美国，每年就有超过两百万起对抗生素产生抗药性的感染病例。其中23万起病例最终造成死亡。

If there are messages the CDC wants to get out, one is: We want doctors to know that antibiotic resistance is a big problem," said Hicks.

她说，疾病控制中心希望传达的一个讯息是： “我们希望医生们了解，抗药性是一个大问题。”

Another is:"We want patients to know that antibiotics don’t work for viral infections," she said.

另一个讯息是：“我们希望患者了解，如果是病毒感染，抗生素并不起作用。”

Antibiotic resistance already has changed the way medicine is practiced in hospitals like Johns Hopkins in Baltimore.

抗药性问题已经改变了巴尔的摩约翰·霍普金斯医院等医疗设施的行医方式。

Doctors there are now more cautious about how they use antibiotics, and they constantly review treatment plans to see if patients are getting the right antibiotics and the right dose. Dr. Trish Perl is an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Medicine.

那里的医生在使用抗生素时更加谨慎了。他们还经常重新审议治疗方案，看看患者是不是使用的抗生素及其剂量是否恰当。约翰·霍普金斯医学院的流行病学专家特里什·珀尔博士说：

“You all of the sudden understand what it was like to practice medicine maybe 50, 70, 80 years ago when there weren’t antibiotics," said Perl.

“你一下子体会到50年或者七、八十年前行医大概是什么样子了。那时还没有抗生素。”

Nearby, at the University of Maryland Medical Center, doctors have changed the way they care for patients in the intensive care unit.

在附近的马里兰大学医学中心，医生们已经改变了在加护病房照顾患者的方式。

MRSA is an antibiotic resistant staph infection that spreads easily in a hospital, especially in an intensive care unit, and it can be deadly. Dr. Anthony Harris studied whether having health care workers wear gloves and gowns in intensive care units could reduce the number of infections.

“抗药性金黄色葡萄球菌”(MRSA)是一种对抗生素有抵抗力的葡萄球菌感染。这种病菌尤其容易在加护病房扩散，可以致人死命。安东尼·哈里斯博士研究了加护病房的医护人员戴手套穿长袍是否能够减少感染病例。

“Wearing gloves and gowns for all patient contact lead to a significant decrease in MRSA acquisition, accounting⁵ for about a 40 percent decrease," said Harris.

他说：“在所有接触患者过程中都戴手套穿长袍，使MRSA感染率有了显著下降，减少了大约40%。”

Dr. Perl says more money needs to be poured into research so health officials can understand how these organisms are spread. New drugs need to be developed to take the place of those that no longer work. And patients need to be educated.

珀尔博士说，必须投入更多的研究资金，以便让医疗界负责人员了解这些有机物的传播方式。必须开发新的药物，取代那些已经失效的药物。患者也必须受到教育。

"Resistance commonly develops when people skip medications or take it one day and not the next. Or they don’t think they really have to take the entire course. It’s particularly problematic with diseases like tuberculosis," she said.

他说：“抗药性问题的出现，通常是因为人们错过服药或者吃一天停一天。或者，他们觉得自己不需要服完整个疗程。这对结核病等疾病来说，问题尤其严重。”

Solutions need to be found fast because the World Health Organization warns that antibiotic resistance is a problem so serious that it threatens the achievements of modern medicine.

必须迅速找到解决办法，因为世卫组织警告说，对抗生素的抗药性问题已经变得如此严重，它有可能毁掉现代医学所取得的成就。