H1N1才是最后一次流行病，而非新型冠狀病毒

H1N1才是最后一次流行病，而非新型冠狀病毒

Despite worrisome new outbreaks in Iran, Italy and South Korea, the coronavirus disease called COVID-19 is not currently a pandemic, the World Health Organization said today.

世界衛(wèi)生組織今天表示，盡管伊朗、意大利和韓國爆發(fā)了令人擔憂的新疫情，但被稱為COVID-19的冠狀病毒疾病目前并不是一種大流行。

In fact, there are some encouraging trends, especially in Hubei Province, where most of the cases have been reported.

事實上，有一些令人鼓舞的趨勢，特別是在大多數(shù)病例都已報告的湖北省。

The epidemic there appears to have plateaued in late January and is continuing on a good trajectory. Dr. Bruce Aylward led a WHO trip to China with a scientific delegation that just concluded. On Sunday, he told reporters in Beijing that trend is real.

那里的疫情似乎在1月下旬趨于穩(wěn)定，并繼續(xù)沿著良好的軌道發(fā)展。布魯斯·艾爾沃德博士率領一個科學代表團結束了對中國的訪問。周日，他在北京告訴記者，這種趨勢是真實的。

Aylward said that he'd spoken to a researcher in Wuhan who is testing potential drugs to treat COVID-19.

艾爾沃德說，他已經(jīng)與武漢的一名研究人員進行了交談，這名研究人員正在測試治療COVID-19的潛在藥物。

That's a good kind of problem. The message from China is that it's not hopeless, he says. It is possible to control this disease.

這是個好問題。他說，來自中國的消息是，這并非毫無希望。控制這種疾病是可能的。

"Now we're starting to see countries like Italy take extremely aggressive actions," Aylward said. "What China has demonstrated is you have to do this, and if you do it you can save lives and prevent thousands of cases of what is a very difficult disease."

“現(xiàn)在我們開始看到像意大利這樣的國家采取極其激進的行動，”艾爾沃德說。“中國已經(jīng)證明，你必須這么做，如果你這么做了，你就可以拯救生命，預防數(shù)千例這種非常棘手的疾病。”

Getting the public's full cooperation to do the simplest tasks is a reason for the success.

讓公眾的充分合作來完成最簡單的任務是成功的原因之一。

"Believe it or not, the most valuable thing the whole population can do is wash its hands, continually," he said. Other useful measures include avoiding crowds, as you'd find in schools and large gatherings.

“信不信由你，所有人能做的最有價值的事就是不斷洗手，”他說。其他有用的措施包括避開人群，就像你在學校和大型集會中會看到的那樣。

But restricting travel is not on Aylward's list of useful actions.

但限制旅行并不在艾爾沃德的有用行動清單上。

"You don't have to lock down cities is the big message from China, in fact," he said.

“事實上，來自中國的重要信息是不必封鎖城市，”他說。

The WHO scientific delegation's task was to learn what worked in China and to spread the word. But even during their brief trip, the disease was making serious inroads in South Korea, Iran and in Italy. As of Monday morning, South Korea had reported 763 cases, Iran had reported 43 cases – including 8 deaths – and Italy added 48 cases to bring its national total to 124.

世衛(wèi)組織科學代表團的任務是了解什么在中國有效，并傳播這一消息。但即使在他們短暫的旅行期間，這種疾病也在韓國、伊朗和意大利嚴重蔓延。截至周一上午，韓國報告了763例，伊朗報告了43例，包括8例死亡，意大利增加了48例，使其全國病例總數(shù)達到124例。

"There is a lot of speculation about whether this increase means that this epidemic has now become a pandemic," said WHO Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus at a news conference in Geneva, Switzerland.

世衛(wèi)組織總干事泰德羅斯阿罕穆格比亞思在瑞士日內瓦舉行的新聞發(fā)布會上說:“有很多人猜測，這種增長是否意味著這種流行病現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)成為一種流行病。”

Assigning that label isn't simply a matter of whether a disease is on multiple continents, but whether it's out of control and doing significant damage.

給出這個標簽不僅僅是一個疾病是否在多個大洲流行的問題，而是它是否失控并造成重大破壞的問題。

Those are decisions that WHO makes before declaring that a disease is a pandemic. The term was last used for the H1N1 flu virus that struck in 2009. sickening more than 60 million in the U.S. alone and killing some half a million worldwide.

這些是世衛(wèi)組織在宣布一種疾病為大流行之前做出的決定。這個詞最后一次被用來指2009年爆發(fā)的H1N1流感病毒，僅在美國就有6.000多萬人患病，在全球范圍內約有50萬人死亡。

"Does this virus [that causes COVID-19] have pandemic potential?" Tedros asked rhetorically. "Absolutely it has. Are we there yet? From our assessment, not yet."

“這種[導致COVID-19的]病毒有可能大流行嗎?”泰德羅斯反問道。“絕對是這樣。我們到那個地步嗎?根據(jù)我們的評估，還沒有。”

The WHO's top priorities are to protect health-care workers, to protect vulnerable people such as those who are sick and elderly and to protect vulnerable countries.

世衛(wèi)組織的首要任務是保護衛(wèi)生保健工作者，保護弱勢群體，如病人和老年人，以及保護脆弱的國家。

Even the advanced nations of Europe have work to do, since their hospitals are pretty full these days with flu patients. Those beds might be needed for coronavirus patients.

即使是歐洲的發(fā)達國家也有工作要做，因為這些天他們的醫(yī)院里滿是流感患者。冠狀病毒患者可能需要這些床位。

If the spread of the coronavirus in Europe can be slowed until the end of flu season, that"will free up significant capacity of the health system," said Dr. Michael Ryan, executive director for the WHO's Health Emergency Program. "So even slowing down the virus by a month or six weeks has a massive positive benefit."

世界衛(wèi)生組織衛(wèi)生緊急項目執(zhí)行主任邁克爾·瑞安博士說，如果能夠在流感季節(jié)結束之前減緩冠狀病毒在歐洲的傳播，“將釋放衛(wèi)生系統(tǒng)的巨大能力”。“因此，即使是將病毒的傳播速度降低一個月或六個星期，也會帶來巨大的積極效益。”

Health officials in the United States know they can't count indefinitely on their current strategy — identifying every new case immediately and isolating those patients. So they're considering containment measures akin to what worked in China, such as school closings.

美國的衛(wèi)生官員知道，他們不能無限期地指望他們目前的戰(zhàn)略，迅速識別每一個新病例，并隔離這些患者。因此，他們正在考慮類似于在中國奏效的遏制措施，比如關閉學校。