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【原文标题】China’s Tough Flu Measures Appear to Be Effective
【中文标题】中国严厉的预防流感措施似乎是有效的
【登载媒体】美国《纽约时报》
【来源地址】http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/1 ... inaflu.html?_r=1&hp
【译者】rhapsody
【声明】本译文供Anti-CNN使用,未经AC或译者许可,谢绝转载;谢谢合作。
【译文】
By EDWARD WONG
Published: November 11, 2009
The village of Changgang was quarantined for about a week.
长岗镇被隔离了约一星期。
CHANGGANG, China — Few farmers in this southern village gave much thought to the epidemic that had begun spreading rapidly in the United States early this summer until the authorities sealed its 100 residents off from the outside world for about a week. It turned out that a visitor from California had shown symptoms of the swine flu virus, or H1N1, when he arrived for a funeral.
中国长岗(译注:广东省肇庆市封开县下属的一个镇)——这个南方农村的村民们很少会关注这种在美国已经开始迅速传播的流行性疾病,直到当局对100位居民实施了约一星期与外界的隔离。结果发现是一个来自加利福尼亚的到访者出现了猪流感(H1N1)的症状,他到那里是去参加一场葬礼的。
Quarantines and medical detentions are among the aggressive measures that Chinese officials have taken to slow the transmission of H1N1, which quickly spread worldwide after being diagnosed first in North America.
H1N1最早在北美被诊断之后,在世界范围内快速传播,中国官员为了减缓其传染速度,采取了包括隔离和医学拘留在内的一系列严厉措施。
To protests from around the world, China isolated entire planeloads of people entering the country if anyone on the plane exhibited flulike symptoms. Local authorities canceled school classes at the slightest hint of the disease and ordered students and teachers to stay home. China was virtually alone in taking such harsh measures, which continued throughout most of the summer.
面对世界各地的抗议,中国还是会对全部航班人员进行隔离,只要飞机上有一人出现类似流感症状的话。地方官员只要发现一点哪怕是最轻微的患病迹象,就会让学校停课,并要求学生和教师呆在家里。实际上中国是唯一采取如此严厉措施的国家,而且在夏天大部分时间都这样。
Now, Chinese and foreign health officials say that some of those contested measures — more easily adopted by an authoritarian state — may have helped slow the spread of the disease in the world’s most populous country. China has not had to cope with a crush of cases, and it began administering a vaccine for swine flu in early September, the first country to do so.
现在,中国和外国卫生官员声称其中一些具有争议的措施——(这些措施)更容易为威权国家所采取——可能对减缓疾病在这个世界人口最多国家的传播起到了作用。中国无需应对拥挤的感染人群,并且已经在九月初开始就供应猪流感疫苗,是第一个提供疫苗的国家。
Foreign officials also say that China demonstrated an unusual openness to sharing information about H1N1 with its citizens and other governments, in contrast to its secretive approach to the near pandemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, a few years ago.
外国官员还说中国在同本国公民和外国政府分享H1N1信息方面显示出了不同寻常的开放态度,这与几年前中国应对几乎蔓延全国的严重急性呼吸系统综合症(SARS)时所采取的事事保密的做法截然不同。
That is not to say that China has been spared. On Tuesday, Health Ministry officials reported an “explosive” growth of H1N1 on the mainland because of the onset of winter, with 5,000 new cases in the previous three days pushing the total to more than 59,000.
这并不是意味着中国已经可以高枕无忧了。卫生部官员报告:由于冬天的来临,H1N1(病例)在大陆地区出现了“爆炸性的”增长,过去三天新增了5000例新病例,使得病例总数超过了59000例。
At least 30 people have died here after contracting H1N1.
已有至少30人在感染H1N1后死亡。
Exact data on the virus are hard to pin down; many more cases are suspected than confirmed, and countries often use different methods to identify cases. Still, the indications in China are much more positive than those in India. Like China, India has more than a billion people, many living in poor, rural conditions, and was exposed to the virus after it had been identified in the West. The Indian Health Ministry has reported 505 deaths.
关于病毒的准确数据难以确定;疑似病例比确认病例要多得多,各个国家常用不同方法来鉴别病例。不过,中国的迹象要比印度好得多。和中国类似,印度有超过十亿人口,许多人生活在贫穷的农村环境下,在病毒经西方确认后也受到其害。印度卫生部已经报告了505宗死亡病例。
The United States, where the virus was spreading before it was identified in the spring, has reported more than two million cases and about 4,000 deaths in a population of 300 million.
而病毒在春季得到确认之前就已开始在美国传播;美国三亿人口中已经报告了超过200万宗病例,约4000宗死亡病例。
“I think there were a variety of measures put in place by different countries, and it’s difficult to say what worked best and what didn’t, but China’s has worked very well,” said Dr. Michael O’Leary, the director of the Beijing office of the World Health Organization.
“不同国家采取了各种不同的措施,很难说清哪种最有效还是无效,不过中国的措施已经发挥了很好的作用。”世界卫生(世卫)组织驻华代表蓝睿明博士说道。
As of August, 56 million people had been screened for flulike symptoms at China’s borders, said Feng Zijian, director of the emergency office of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Mr. Feng said he did not know the number of travelers who had been quarantined. The United States Embassy in Beijing said that 2,046 American citizens had been quarantined by the end of October, with 215 testing positive for H1N1.
截至8月,已有5600万人在中国边境被查出有类似流感症状,中国疾病预防控制中心应急办公室主任冯子健说道。冯先生说他并不知道被隔离旅行者的数目。美国驻北京大使馆声称截止十月底已有2046位美国公民受到隔离,其中215人被检出对H1N1呈阳性。
“If these strict measures had not been taken, and if there had been a sudden outbreak of the disease, there would have been a huge panic among the Chinese population,” Mr. Feng said. “Although there were many criticisms from outside, people should understand China’s considerations.”
“如果当初没有采取这些严厉的措施,而疫情突然爆发的话,将在中国居民中引起极大的恐慌”,冯先生说道,“虽然外界有很多批评,但人们应该理解中国的顾虑。”
But Mr. Feng and Dr. O’Leary also say that the social and financial costs of China’s tough measures will have to be evaluated to see whether they were worth the benefits. And it is unclear how decisive those actions were in slowing the transmission of H1N1 — the summer heat in much of China was a critical factor in slowing the spread, and most schools were out of session at the time.
但冯先生和蓝博士同样提到中国严厉措施所付出的社会经济成本是否值得要由效益来衡量。这些举措在减缓H1N1传染方面起到了多大的决定性作用尚不明确——中国大部分地区夏季的高温也是减缓(病毒)传播的重要因素,而大多数学校此时也正处于假期。
Some foreign officials are still skeptical of the need for the strict quarantine measures, saying that China should have re-evaluated its policies by June, when it was apparent that the disease was not as lethal as initially feared. The State Council, China’s cabinet, did not decide to relax the quarantine policy until July.
一些外国官员仍然对严厉隔离措施的必要性持怀疑态度,认为中国应该在六月份重新评估其政策,当时这种疾病显然不像先前所惧怕的那般致命。而国务院(中国的内阁)直到七月都没有决定放宽隔离的政策。
From the beginning, the W.H.O. has said that tightening borders would not keep the disease out, and that closing borders or automatically quarantining specific groups of travelers — as China did for a brief period with holders of Mexican passports — would have no benefit.
从一开始,世卫组织就说收紧入境的做法并不能阻止疾病(蔓延),而关闭边境或不加思索地隔离特定群体的旅行人员——正如中国在短时期内对墨西哥护照持有者所做的那样——亦无助益。
Quarantines of entire school groups from overseas ignited outrage and led some American officials to complain to Beijing. The State Department implicitly criticized the Chinese policies by issuing travel warnings on the quarantine procedures.
对来自海外的一些学校团体实施整体隔离的做法激发了怒火,也使得一些美国官员向北京当局抱怨。国务部以发布关于隔离措施的旅行警告之方式隐晦地表示了批评。
In July, a group of 65 students and seven chaperons from St. Mary’s School in Medford, Ore., was quarantined twice. The first time came after a girl pulled aside at the airport in Beijing tested positive for H1N1. Then in Henan, a boy running a high fever also tested positive, leading to the second quarantine. During that time, a dozen students tested positive for H1N1. Most of the students and chaperons flew back to the United States on July 31, having spent 12 of 17 days of their trip in quarantine.
七月份,俄勒冈州梅德福德市圣玛丽学校一行65个学生和7个随行监护人被进行了两次隔离。第一次是当一个女孩在北京的机场被叫到一边并被测出对H1N1呈阳性之后。然后在河南,一个发高烧的男孩同样被测出呈阳性,导致了第二次隔离。那一次,有十二名学生被测出对H1N1呈阳性。他们17天的旅途有12天在隔离中度过,随后大多数学生和随行监护人于7月31日飞回美国。
“At the time, it seemed extreme, and it seemed restrictive, because I had never experienced an infectious disease outbreak,” said Scott Dewing, director of technology at the school and one of the trip chaperons. “Now, looking back and seeing some of the measures that are being taken now in the U.S., the Chinese measures don’t seem so extreme.”
“那时候,那(措施)看上去是极端的、约束的,因为我从未经历过一次传染性疾病爆发”,学校的技术总监,也是随行监护人之一的斯科特·丢因说道,“现在回想起来,再看看美国现时采取的一些措施,中国的措施看上去也不是那么极端。”
Chinese and Western officials say that Chinese leaders put in place a comprehensive plan for a pandemic outbreak after the disastrous experience of SARS. This includes, at least in the first stages, some of the stringent quarantine measures taken for SARS but also emphasizes education. A red banner hanging from the balcony of a rural school building here in Guangdong Province says, “H1N1 flu is preventable, controllable and curable, and not terrifying.”
中国和西方官员说在SARS的灾难性经历后,中国领导人对大规模传染病的爆发设置了完整的预案。其中包括在初始阶段,针对SARS采取一些隔离性措施,但同样要强调教育。一所农村学校的阳台上悬挂着一条红色条幅,写道“H1N1流感可防、可控、可治,不可怕。”
The government was so anxious to stay ahead of H1N1 that officials decided in June to start developing a vaccine even though testing kits for measuring the dosage of the agent in the experimental vaccines had not arrived from the W.H.O., said Zhao Kai, a virologist who advises the government. It was an unusual step, but on Sept. 5 China became the first country to declare that it had developed a vaccine, and by late October it had produced nearly 53 million doses.
政府是如此急于赶在H1N1前头,以至于官员在6月份就决定开始研发疫苗,尽管当时测定实验疫苗接种者剂量的检测试剂盒还未从世卫组织运过来,为政府提供建议的病毒学专家赵凯说道。这是不同寻常的举动,但在9月5日,中国成为第一个宣布研发出疫苗的国家;而到了10月份的晚些时候,中国已经生产出了将近5300万剂疫苗。 |
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