2007年VOA标准英语-Drug-Resistent Tuberculosis Gains Strength in R

By Anya Ardayeva
Moscow
21 March 2007
 
watch Tuberculosis¹ Russia report

Russia is among the 22 countries in the world with the highest rate of tuberculosis. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) says that after years of decline during the Soviet² era, the incidence of TB more than doubled in the 1990s. That has slowed since 2000, but doctors warn there is a growing number of cases of a drug-resistant³ form of TB that could eventually lead to the development of a new, incurable⁴ virus. Anya Ardayeva reports from Moscow.

Ninety percent of patients at Moscow's Central Tuberculosis Research Institute are suffering from the drug-resistant form of TB.

 
Irina Vasilyeva
Irina Vasilyeva, the head of the institute's therapeutic⁵ department, outlines the problem.  "I think this is the consequences of the ‘90s, when the entire healthcare system collapsed⁷, the society was lost, everything that had been achieved was lost, patients were left to themselves, the disease developed and there were many patients left who were not cured completely, who continued living in the society and contaminating people around them. Now we are seeing the consequences of the collapse⁶ of the state, and of the social and economic problems.”

Multidrug-resistant TB is tuberculosis that is resistant to the two medicines most commonly used to treat it. That makes it harder to treat.  Doctors say that many patients with drug-sensitive TB need to take their antibiotics⁹ daily for several months, but they stop when they start to feel better. And so the disease mutates, it becomes resistant to traditional antibiotic⁸ treatment. TB still has a terrible stigma¹⁰ attached to it in Russia and the public tries to ignore it.

 
Alexei
Meet Alexei. He is a 24-year-old student who tested positive for TB after he came to the hospital for a hernia surgery. He says he was immediately fired from his job, and stopped telling people about the disease.

After two years of treatment, Alexei says he is amazed by how little Russians know about TB. "People are afraid of AIDS and the sexually-transmitted diseases and are protecting themselves with condoms. But no one thinks about diseases like TB, although they are so widespread. People need to be informed about them. Everyone is trying to hide it. But it's not right.”

Another patient, Natalya, has been under treatment for a multi-drug-resistant form of TB for the last five years. She says the disease has ruined her life. She is 33 years old with a disability pension that is the equivalent of about $90 a month.

"I can't even imagine where I got it,” she says. “It's such a thing -- one sneezes, another catches it. It could have been on a trolleybus, on transport, anywhere. How did it change my life? I am a pensioner¹¹ now, with 2500 rubles of monthly income. This is how it has changed. I can't find a job. Who will hire me after I have been retired¹² for five years? What job will I be doing?"

The World Health Organization says drug-resistant TB is a hundred times more expensive to treat than the ordinary form of the disease, and the Russian state's supplies of the right medicines are often scarce. Failing to contain the spread of multi-drug-resistant TB could lead to an additional threat: the emergence¹³ of a new, almost untreatable, form of TB.

Irina Vasilyeva of Moscow's Central Tuberculosis Research Institute says, "There will be a new form of the disease that will be resistible to nearly all anti-TB medication. This can lead to very grave consequences. The tuberculosis bacillus will become resistible to any medication. And from the start it will be impossible to cure such patients. We will get back to the situation of pre-anti-bacterial epoch¹⁴ when there were no antibiotics and no anti-tuberculosis medicines. We will be back to what it was a hundred years ago."

The Red Cross estimates some 70 people die in Russia from tuberculosis every day. Veronika Agapova, the main TB specialist at the Russian Red Cross in Moscow, says the other problem in combating the spread of TB is Russia's ineffective system of monitoring the people infected with the disease.

"Even if the medicine is there, it doesn't always reach the patients because they do not always take them and there's no clear system of controlling those patients," says Agapova.

In the 1990s, the Moscow Center for Prison Reform said that prisons and labor¹⁵ camps became incubators for multi-drug-resistant TB in Russia. And health officials say the level of TB incidence in prisons is still high. Yet no one knows exactly how many people in this country are infected or how many are being properly treated. Doctors like Irina Vasilyeva says that is a time bomb waiting to explode.

1 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。

2 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。

3 resistant   

adj.(to)抵抗的，有抵抗力的

参考例句：

• Many pests are resistant to the insecticide.许多害虫对这种杀虫剂有抵抗力。
• They imposed their government by force on the resistant population.他们以武力把自己的统治强加在持反抗态度的人民头上。

4 incurable   

adj.不能医治的，不能矫正的，无救的；n.不治的病人，无救的人

参考例句：

• All three babies were born with an incurable heart condition.三个婴儿都有不可治瘉的先天性心脏病。
• He has an incurable and widespread nepotism.他们有不可救药的，到处蔓延的裙带主义。

5 therapeutic   

adj.治疗的，起治疗作用的；对身心健康有益的

参考例句：

• Therapeutic measures were selected to fit the patient.选择治疗措施以适应病人的需要。
• When I was sad,music had a therapeutic effect.我悲伤的时候，音乐有治疗效力。

6 collapse   

vi.累倒；昏倒；倒塌；塌陷

参考例句：

• The country's economy is on the verge of collapse.国家的经济已到了崩溃的边缘。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做了一次彻底的调查分析。

7 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

8 antibiotic   

adj.抗菌的；n.抗生素

参考例句：

• The doctor said that I should take some antibiotic.医生说我应该服些用抗生素。
• Antibiotic can be used against infection.抗菌素可以用来防止感染。

9 antibiotics   

n.（用作复数）抗生素；（用作单数）抗生物质的研究；抗生素，抗菌素( antibiotic的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• the discovery of antibiotics in the 20th century 20世纪抗生素的发现
• The doctor gave me a prescription for antibiotics. 医生给我开了抗生素。

10 stigma   

n.耻辱，污名；(花的)柱头

参考例句：

• Being an unmarried mother used to carry a social stigma.做未婚母亲在社会上曾是不光彩的事。
• The stigma of losing weighed heavily on the team.失败的耻辱让整个队伍压力沉重。

11 pensioner   

n.领养老金的人

参考例句：

• The tax threshold for a single pensioner is$ 445.单身领退休年金者的纳税起点为445英镑。
• It was the pensioner's vote late in the day that influenced the election of Mr.Sweet.最后是领取养老金者的选票影响了斯威特先生的当选。

12 retired   

adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的

参考例句：

• The old man retired to the country for rest.这位老人下乡休息去了。
• Many retired people take up gardening as a hobby.许多退休的人都以从事园艺为嗜好。

13 emergence   

n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体

参考例句：

• The last decade saw the emergence of a dynamic economy.最近10年见证了经济增长的姿态。
• Language emerges and develops with the emergence and development of society.语言是随着社会的产生而产生，随着社会的发展而发展的。

14 epoch   

n.(新)时代；历元

参考例句：

• The epoch of revolution creates great figures.革命时代造就伟大的人物。
• We're at the end of the historical epoch,and at the dawn of another.我们正处在一个历史时代的末期，另一个历史时代的开端。

15 labor   

n.劳动，努力，工作，劳工；分娩；vi.劳动，努力，苦干；vt.详细分析；麻烦

参考例句：

• We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
• He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后，他已经疲惫不堪了。