“There’s a cycle of illness and malnutrition where you have a child who is sick, and they lose their appetite.And they become dehydrated from having diarrhea, they obviously lose weight, and then, once they are malnourished then,that also drives their vulnerability to additional illness.”
“疾病和营养不良之间有一个循环,当孩子生病的时候,就会没有胃口。进而会由于腹泻而脱水,然后体重会有明显减少,而一旦他们营养不良,身体变得不堪一击,就会患上其他疾病。”
Anyone can get cholera, but children, pregnant women and the elderly are most at risk.
任何人都可以感染霍乱,但是儿童、孕妇和老年人患病的几率更大。
Yet, cholera is not difficult or expensive to treat.
不过霍乱的治疗其实并不困难,治疗成本也不是特别高。
“It actually is really simple if you can catch it early and you can provide hydration to the less severe patients so they don’t become the severe patients that then require more intensive treatment.”
“其实如果发现的早,治疗起来还是很容易的,通过给病情没有那么严重的病人提供水,可以防止他们病情恶化,成为需要更强化治疗的危重患者。”
But in places ravaged by flooding and other natural disasters,or by manmade disasters like war, and crowded refugee camps, sanitation is hard to maintain.Water can’t be treated properly, human waste can’t easily be disposed of hygienically,so in addition to providing aid, humanitarian organizations find themselves trying to rebuild sanitation systems.
但在遭遇洪泛和其他自然灾害,以及战争和人满为患的难民营等一些人为灾害时,环境卫生往往难以保证。水源也无法得到适当的处理。在处理人类粪便时也很难保证卫生条件。因此除了提供援助之外,人道主义组织也在努力重建卫生系统。
The WHO says about 2 billion people globally lack access to clean water.
世卫组织表示,全球约有20亿人无法获得干净的水。
Vaccines can help. But building sanitation systems in poor countries is critical to preventing cholera once and for all.
疫苗虽然也有用。但在一些贫穷国家,建立卫生系统对于彻底预防霍乱至关重要。
“You’ve to think about what the enormous burden cholera is.It’s basically a poverty trap for some of those countries which they can never get out of.
“必须要考虑到霍乱对他们是很大的负担。对于其中一些国家来说,这就是一个他们永远无法逃脱的贫困陷阱。”
Forty-seven countries are affected by cholera, and the WHO expects the global cholera situation to get worse.That’s why this new strategy to end cholera is so urgent.
全球有47个国家都饱受霍乱的困扰,世卫组织预计全球霍乱情况将进一步恶化。正因如此,这个消除霍乱的新方法才显得如此紧迫。
Carol Pearson, VOA news, Washington.
VOA新闻,卡洛·皮尔森于华盛顿为您播报。