抵禦流感的新方法
New ways to flight the flu
抵禦流感的新方法
You go to bed feeling fine. The next morning you're sick with a fever, exhaustion, headache, body aches and more.
晚上睡覺之前你還感覺良好，但是第二天早上醒來後卻發現自己病了，發燒、疲勞、渾身疼等等。
You may have influenza, better known as the flu. It's caused by a virus, a tiny bit of genetic material surrounded by a protein. Flu viruses infect the nose, throat and lungs. (If people claim to have "stomach flu," they are mistaken. They really have some other infection.)
此時你可能已經患上流行性感冒，也就是我們通常所說的流感。這種病一般由病毒引起，病毒是一種由蛋白質裹着的遺傳物質。這些流感病毒會感染鼻腔，喉嚨和肺部。（如果患者覺得自己患了"腸胃感冒"，那他們就錯了，事實上他們是患有其他感染）。
A widespread outbreak of flu or another infectious disease is called an epidemic. In some years, flu spreads so far and so fast that it causes a worldwide epidemic. This is known as a pandemic. Researchers hope to prevent a pandemic if possible. One tactic: vaccines.
流感廣泛爆發或另一種傳染病被稱爲流行病。在某段時間內，流感快速、廣泛爆發會引起世界範圍內的流行病，叫做流行性疾病。如果可能的話研究者希望阻止它。而他們的首選應對策略是疫苗。Flu vaccines offer people some immunity. Immunity is the body's ability to resist a particular disease by making proteins called antibodies. A vaccine can give that process a head start. However, no vaccine yet can fight all types, or strains, of flu.
流感疫苗能增強人體免疫力，它是人類通過自身製造抗體蛋白質來抵禦特殊疾病必不可少的能力，而疫苗會賦予這一過程一個順利的開端。但迄今爲止還沒有一種疫苗能抵抗各種類型的流感。What's more, notes David Morens, "Flu is not one virus. It's many, many viruses." Morens works at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md. As an epidemiologist, he studies the causes, patterns and effects of disease.
就職於美國馬里蘭州貝塞斯達國立衛生研究所的David Morens補充道：流感不是由一個病毒構成，而是由大量的病毒構成。作爲一名流行病學家，他對疾病的起因，發展模式以及所產生的後果進行了研究。
