VOA常速英语2014--抗生素耐药问题性亟待迅速行动（在线收听）

Antibiotic Resistance Requires Fast Actions 抗生素耐药问题性亟待迅速行动

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

在4月30日，世界卫生组织发布了一个安全警告。据报告称我们已经进入了使用抗生素后期，这也就意味着：曾经用于治疗细菌传染的抗生素药物，现在已经不能迅速起到有效作用，甚至根本无效。

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

细菌是一种很小的微生物，它既不是植物也不是动物。其中一些细菌对我们的健康有益，比如乳酸里的乳酸菌，而另一些细菌则可使人致命。

Like the World Health Organization,  the U.S. Centers for Disease Control has found that some bacteria no longer respond to antibiotics like they used to. Dr. Laurie Hicks is with the CDC.

在疾病控制中心Dr. Laurie Hicks说，和世界卫生组织一样，美国疾病控制中心也已近发现，一些抗生素药物对它们使用过细菌已近不再起作用。

“We are seeing greater than 2 million episodes of antibiotic resistant infections each year in the U.S. alone. Twenty-three thousand of these episodes result in death," said Hicks.

“我们看到每年仅在美国就有超过200万因抗生素耐药性而感染的案例，在这些案例中导致死亡的23000多例。”Hicks说

If there are messages the CDC wants to get out, one is:

若下面是疾病中心想发布的消息

We want doctors to know that antibiotic resistance is a big problem," said Hicks.

第一条，我们希望医生了解抗生素耐药性是一个很大的问题。Hicks说

Another is:

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

第二条，我们希望病人能够明白抗生素对病毒感染不起作用。她说。

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

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.

抗生素耐药性已近改变了医院医学实践的方式。就像在巴尔的摩约翰霍普金斯医学院那样，那里的医生现在对如何使用抗生素很谨慎，他们不断的回看治疗方案，看看是否给病人使用的抗生素正确，剂量适当。Dr. Trish Perl是约翰霍普金斯医学院的一名流行病学专家。

“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.

你可能会突然会明白，在50、60或70是年代，那时还没有抗生素情况下，是如何行医的，Perl 说。

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

在马里兰大学医学中心那里，医生已近改变了他们照顾重症监护室里病人的方式。

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.

MRSA是一种抗生素耐药金黄色葡萄球菌,很容易在医院传播,尤其是在重症监护室里,它可以致命。Dr. Anthony Harris研究了在重症监护病房是否医护人员戴手套和穿防护服可以减少感染患者的数量。

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

“戴手套和穿防护服接触所有病人时，可明显降低耐甲氧西林金黄色葡萄球菌,大约可减少40%,” Hicks说。

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.

Dr. Perl说研究需要投入更多的资金, 卫生官员能够明白这些生物是如何传播的，同时需要开发新的药物来代替那些已不再起作用的旧药，同样病人也需要接受教育。

"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.

“当人们脱离药物治疗或只吃一天药,而接下来不吃，或是他们真的认为他们不需要整个治疗过程，抵抗性通常是这样形成的。尤其那些悬而未决的疾病,如肺结核,”她说。

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.

我们需要尽快找到解决方案,因为世界卫生组织警告说,抗生素耐药性问题非常严重,已经对现代医学成果构成威胁。