英国卫报:一万亿美元能治愈所有疾病吗?(9)（在线收听）

We can add to this. Jessica Metcalf, an infectious diseases biologist at Princeton University, has proposed a Global Immunological Observatory,

我们可以加上这个。普林斯顿大学传染病生物学家杰西卡·梅特卡夫提出了一个全球免疫观察站，

a global programme of immune-system sampling from the general public that would allow scientists to pick up signs of new pathogens as they emerge.

这是一个从普通公众中提取免疫系统样本的全球计划，它将允许科学家在新病原体出现时发现它们的迹象。

For malaria, we can add to the World Health Organization's efforts. The WHO is putting $8.7bn a year into its 10-year malaria strategy.

在疟疾方面，世界卫生组织可以再接再厉。世界卫生组织每年会向其10年疟疾战略投入87亿美元。

If we added, say, $100bn, what could we do? The classic idea in epidemiology is to eliminate the common cold by giving everyone a wonder drug at once. Bingo, cold gone.

比如，如果再增加1000亿美元，我们能做些什么呢？流行病学的观点通常是一次性给每个人一种灵丹妙药来消除一般性的感冒。哇，感冒好了！

With our windfall we could try to ensure that everyone in need, throughout the world, received the best available antimalarial drugs (at the moment, the artemisinin-based combination therapy).

有了这笔意外之财，我们就可以努力确保全世界每一个有需要的人都能获得现有的最佳抗疟药物(目前是青蒿素类复方疗法)。

But, even with our money, we can't reach everyone in remote places and, without also controlling the mosquito population density, malaria will come back instantly.

但是，即便有了这笔钱，我们也无法覆盖到偏远地区的每一个人，而且，如果不控制蚊子种群密度，疟疾将立即卷土重来。

So we'd need to fight the insect as well as the disease. Malaria is caused by a parasitic microorganism, Plasmodium, carried by a mosquito.

所以我们不仅要对付疾病，还要对付昆虫。疟疾是由一种由蚊子携带的寄生微生物“疟原虫”引起的。

We've tried over the years to eradicate it, but, every time, the parasite or the insect – or both – have clung on, evolved resistance to our control methods and bounced back.

多年来我们一直试图根除它，但每次，寄生虫或昆虫——或两者——都坚持了下去，对我们的控制方法产生了抗性，之后又反弹回来。

So we need to take out the mosquito reservoir, and to do that we need a method of beating evolution.

所以我们需要剿灭蚊子的老巢，为了做到这一点，我们需要一种能够打败进化的方法。

Target Malaria, an international research consortium, is working on a solution.

国际研究联盟“防治疟疾”正在研究解决方案。

They want to use a method of genetic modification called gene drive, which causes female insects to become infertile, but in a way that has proven immune to the evolution of resistance.

他们想使用一种被称为“基因驱动技术”的基因改造方法，这种方法可以让雌性昆虫不育，但以一种已经被证明对抗性进化免疫的方式。

Rolled out on a big enough scale in the wild, with a huge modification and breeding programme, we can eliminate local populations of malarial mosquitoes.

在野外进行超大规模的改造和繁殖，我们就可以消灭当地的疟蚊种群。

If you are wondering about the ecological wisdom of eliminating an entire species from an area, it's a valid concern.

如果你对消灭一个地区整个物种的生态智慧表示怀疑，那么这个怀疑是合理的。