CNN News:阻止西非埃博拉疫情传播任务困难重重

In West Africa, this year`s outbreak of Ebola virus is merciless. That`s the world from the United Nations. Liberia has been hit the hardest. The hemorrhagic fever has killed at least 1200 people there. Liberia`s finance minister says his country`s at war with an enemy it can`t see. The nation`s health care system can`t handle it. Efforts to stop the virus from spreading aren`t working.

今年在西非国家爆发的埃博拉疫情是残酷无情的，这些是联合国成员国。利比亚受创最严重，出血热疾病造成了1200人死亡。利比亚财政部长表示他的国家正在经受一场没有硝烟的战争。利比亚卫生系统不能控制疫情，控制疫情传播的工作也没有取得明显成效。

Here`s the way it`s supposed to work: for every Ebola patient healthcare workers are supposed to keep track of every single person who`s had close contact with him. If one of these contacts gets sick, he`s supposed to be isolated. Then all of his contacts are followed until there are no more sick patients. It`s called contact tracing, and it`s pretty simple, but it`s powerful, it helped put a stop to SARS and to smallpox. But in many parts of West Africa, contact tracing is breaking down.

这是对支撑其工作的方法：每位治疗埃博拉病人的医护人员都要记录下有亲密接触的人方便追踪，如果接触过的人感染病毒以后就可以直接隔离。然后所有与患者有亲密接触的人都要接受调查，直到再也找不出感染人群。这种方法叫做接触追踪，方法非常简单，但作用却非常强大，这个方法曾经帮助组织了“非典”和天花病毒的传播。但是在西非很多地方，这种最总方法却无从下手。

These slums are a big reason why. In many parts of West Africa, streets have no names, people have no addresses, there may not be maps. That means some contacts never get found.

大量的贫民窟是这种方法不能施展的原因。在西非很多地方，街道都没有名字，人们没有居住地址，可能还没有地图，这就意味着一些接触人群并不可能被发现。

Here`s why that`s such a problem. A missed contacts can spread Ebola to other contacts and they`ll be missed, too. That`s why the CDC says even one missed contact can keep the outbreak going.

原因是，一个错过的接触者就可能感染其他接触者，然后他们可能都找不到，这也就是为什么CDC表示说即使一个错过的接触者就足以让埃博拉病毒继续传播。

By now in West Africa, there are entire chains of transmission that are invisible: the computer databases that keep track of all these cases and contacts, often they are not in such great shape. One disease detective from the CDC working in Sierra Leone, she says the database there was in shambles. The CDC has designed special software to keep track of these cases and these contacts and they are trying to implement it in West Africa, but even that hasn`t gone smoothly. All of these is starting to add up, and it has the World Health Organization really concerned.

目前西非有一个隐形的传输链，就是计算机数据库对所有病例和接触者储存下了记录资料，但是常常效果工作不是很有效。在塞拉利昂CDC工作的一名疾病侦探表示数据库资料一团糟。CDC已经设计了特殊的软件来跟踪这些病例和接触者，他们正在试图在西非成功展开追踪工作，但是工作进程并不顺利。所有这些都已经开始展开工作，世界卫生组织也赋予了高度重视。