VOA常速英语2018--疾病嗅探犬可以帮助阻止疟疾蔓延

Here’s how the study worked.Children in Ghana some of whom had malaria¹, some who did not were given socks to wear for one night, and the trained dogs tried to identify the socks that had evidence of the malarial² parasite³.The key malarial evidence, the people have malaria parasites⁴ produce specific odors, so they smell differently from other people.And most importantly, mosquitoes preferentially feed on people with malaria, so if mosquitoes can do, why not dogs?

这就是此项研究的操作方式。把袜子分发给加纳的孩子们，让孩子们穿一晚，孩子中有些患有疟疾，有些没有患疟疾，接着让受过训练的狗从中找出有疟原虫的袜子。关键的患疟疾的证据，即有疟疾的人会产生特殊的气味，所以他们的气味和其他人不一样。更重要的是，蚊子优先吸疟疾患者的血，所以，如果蚊子可以闻出疟疾，为何狗不能呢？

Dogs like Freya trained by the group Medical Detection Dogs were able to identify malaria correctly seventy percent of the time,and Lindsey says this could lead to new and really effective ways of stopping malaria from spreading.You’re getting really close to malaria elimination⁵, you’re trying to find that the last remaining hot spots and who were those people infected rather than screening everyone.

像Freya这样的由医疗检测犬组训练出来的狗识别疟疾准确率高达百分之七十，Lindsey表示，这也许能带来阻止疟疾传播的新的、真正有效的方法。这就离消除疟疾很近了，你在试着找到最后剩下的重灾区，找到感染人群而非把每个人都检查一遍。

The dog might be good enough to go into the villages and find people.Lindsey says dogs are already on the frontlines of disease and contraband⁶ detection but may be able to detect a host of other illnesses as well.So the fact that I’m working with the dog handlers have worked off with their dogs to detect cancers and Parkinson’s disease,and they actually have dogs that work with diabetic patients that when they’re going into hypoglycemia, the dogs notify the alert persons.The medical detection team is also working with MIT to create a kind of e-nose that could do what the dogs do,but he says the dogs’ noses are so sensitive the technology doesn’t yet exist to match their sniffing⁷ power.

检测犬已经训练到能够进入村庄寻找病患了。Lindsey表示，检测犬已经在疾病和违禁品检测的前沿了，它们也许还能检测出更多的疾病。所以，我和检测犬训练者的工作取得了良好的成效，他们的检测犬能够检测癌症和帕金森病，还有一些检测犬与糖尿病患者一起工作，一旦糖尿病患者血糖过低，检测犬就会通知警报人员。医疗监测小组还和麻省理工合作，创造了一种模仿检测犬的电子鼻，但是表示狗的鼻子实在太灵敏，目前还不存在足以与狗嗅探能力相比的科技。

1 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。

2 malarial   

患疟疾的，毒气的

参考例句：

• Malarial poison had sallowed his skin. 疟疾病毒使他皮肤成灰黄色。
• Standing water like this gives malarial mosquitoes the perfect place to breed. 像这样的死水给了传染疟疾的蚊子绝佳的繁殖地点。

3 parasite   

n.寄生虫；寄生菌；食客

参考例句：

• The lazy man was a parasite on his family.那懒汉是家里的寄生虫。
• I don't want to be a parasite.I must earn my own way in life.我不想做寄生虫，我要自己养活自己。

4 parasites   

寄生物( parasite的名词复数 )； 靠他人为生的人； 诸虫

参考例句：

• These symptoms may be referable to virus infection rather than parasites. 这些症状也许是由病毒感染引起的，而与寄生虫无关。
• Kangaroos harbor a vast range of parasites. 袋鼠身上有各种各样的寄生虫。

5 elimination   

n.排除，消除，消灭

参考例句：

• Their elimination from the competition was a great surprise.他们在比赛中遭到淘汰是个很大的意外。
• I was eliminated from the 400 metres in the semi-finals.我在400米半决赛中被淘汰。

6 contraband   

n.违禁品，走私品

参考例句：

• Most of the city markets were flooded with contraband goods.大多数的城市市场上都充斥着走私货。
• The customs officers rummaged the ship suspected to have contraband goods.海关人员仔细搜查了一艘有走私嫌疑的海轮。

7 sniffing   

n.探查法v.以鼻吸气，嗅，闻( sniff的现在分词 )；抽鼻子（尤指哭泣、患感冒等时出声地用鼻子吸气）；抱怨，不以为然地说

参考例句：

• We all had colds and couldn't stop sniffing and sneezing. 我们都感冒了，一个劲地抽鼻子，打喷嚏。
• They all had colds and were sniffing and sneezing. 他们都伤风了，呼呼喘气而且打喷嚏。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》