2006年VOA标准英语-Scientists Hoping to Beat African Disease

By Joe Bavier
Dantchandou, Niger
10 April 2006

Scientists in Niger, the world's poorest country, are using a new high-tech¹ satellite transmission system to help with rural health care. The network of transmitting stations can track disease outbreaks, report the onset² of drought, and even send alerts when medicine stocks are low. Joe Bavier visited a pilot clinic in southwestern Niger.

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At the local clinic in the village of Dantchandou, not far from the Niger River, an infant receives a check-up.

In 2005, Niger ranked at the bottom of the U.N. Human Development Index. The Dantchandou clinic, with its two exam rooms, serves 47,000 people in 62 different villages. 

 

Malnourished child is fed through feeding tubes  
  

Malaria³ and meningitis are common here. Infant malnutrition⁴ is widespread. But Dantchandou is part of a program being tried out in Niger.

In the corner of the admissions room, stands a small, white box with a screen and keypad. Forty-four identical units are positioned across the country as part of a project of the Global Fund, which finances plans to combat AIDS, tuberculosis⁵, and malaria around the world.

The system, known as Argos, takes coded data entered into the keypad by local staff, and transmits it to a satellite. The information is then beamed back down to the central medical headquarters known as CERMES, in the capital Niamey, where it is collected by scientists.

Information on patients is classified by age, illness, and location. Data on environmental conditions are included. Local staff can even send alerts when medications run low.

Moussa Boubacar is the head nurse at the Dantchandou clinic.

The advantage of the unit, he says, is that it allows medical personnel to communicate directly with headquarters, and transmit the data on a weekly basis. It is very important, for example, he says, if there is an epidemic⁶. Headquarters can be alerted and they can react at a central level.

The system has already proved itself effective in tracking and responding to last years cholera⁷ outbreak in Niger. Nurses in the bush were able to send daily, and even hourly, updates of the number of people affected⁸ by the deadly disease along with specific case information and exact location.

But CERMES scientist Jean-Bernard Duchenau hopes Argos will be most effective in battling epidemics⁹ before they happen.

"For the moment, its for the comprehension of epidemics," he explained. "To try to see why there are seasonal¹⁰ trends in meningitis, for example, or malaria. What is the real link and how can we build a model for a warning system."

CERMES scientists, using data transmitted via Argos, are currently testing a hypothesis linking dust levels to meningitis. The hope is that, in understanding the conditions that facilitate the disease, medical scientists will be better equipped to prevent outbreaks.

Fed into computers at headquarters in Niamey, the data can be transformed quickly into graphs. Maps can be generated to plot where individual cases of a disease occur over an area as small as 10 square kilometers.

And its relatively¹¹ low cost, Duchenau hopes, will make it an economical way to track health problems in poor, rural countries around the world.

"The whole cost, including the batteries and all, is less than $3,000 per unit, which seems perhaps a little high, but is less expensive than a radio transmitter," he said.

Several African countries have expressed interest in the system, Duchenau says.

1 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

2 onset   

n.进攻，袭击，开始，突然开始

参考例句：

• The drug must be taken from the onset of the infection.这种药必须在感染的最初期就开始服用。
• Our troops withstood the onset of the enemy.我们的部队抵挡住了敌人的进攻。

3 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。

4 malnutrition   

n.营养不良

参考例句：

• In Africa, there are a lot of children suffering from severe malnutrition.在非洲有大批严重营养不良的孩子。
• It is a classic case of malnutrition. 这是营养不良的典型病例。

5 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

6 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。

7 cholera   

n.霍乱

参考例句：

• The cholera outbreak has been contained.霍乱的发生已被控制住了。
• Cholera spread like wildfire through the camps.霍乱在营地里迅速传播。

8 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

9 epidemics   

n．流行病

参考例句：

• Reliance upon natural epidemics may be both time-consuming and misleading. 依靠天然的流行既浪费时间，又会引入歧途。
• The antibiotic epidemics usually start stop when the summer rainy season begins. 传染病通常会在夏天的雨季停止传播。

10 seasonal   

adj.季节的，季节性的

参考例句：

• The town relies on the seasonal tourist industry for jobs.这个城镇依靠季节性旅游业提供就业机会。
• The hors d'oeuvre is seasonal vegetables.餐前小吃是应时蔬菜。

11 relatively   

adv.比较...地，相对地

参考例句：

• The rabbit is a relatively recent introduction in Australia.兔子是相对较新引入澳大利亚的物种。
• The operation was relatively painless.手术相对来说不痛。