VOA标准英语2010年-British Scientists Develop One-Hour TB

British scientists say they have found a way to diagnose tuberculosis¹ in an hour.

Alasdair Reid is an advisor² on HIV and Tuberculosis (TB) at UNAIDS. He says diagnosing TB quickly will revolutionize the fight against the illness.

"It will save time for laboratory staff who have to spend hours each day looking at slides to try and find tuberculosis," said Reid. "It will reduce the risk of death amongst people suffering from tuberculosis because they will be diagnosed and treated very quickly."

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), TB killed over 1 million people in 2008.

Before now, the only reliable way to test for tuberculosis was to take molecules⁴ out of a patient and grow a culture from this sample in order to identify if the TB bacteria was present - a process that takes up to eight weeks.

Another method was to identify a particular chemical marker, but scientists found this unreliable because it doesn't pick up all types of TB.

Now, they've found a way to zoom⁵ in and look for a particular molecule³ of DNA⁶ which would show if TB is present. They say this can be done in one hour, a change they say could dramatically reduce the number of TB cases worldwide.

People living with HIV are particularly vulnerable to the disease, says Reid. One in four AIDS deaths, he says, are due to tuberculosis.

"To have a new test that can accurately⁷ diagnose tuberculosis in a person living with HIV within an hour is the holy grail of tuberculosis control," added Reid.

TB is spreading fastest in South East Asia. It's also a growing problem in sub-Saharan Africa, the part of the world hit hardest by HIV.

"Tuberculosis is very much a disease of poverty, poor housing, poor nutrition," explained Reid. "So tuberculosis tends to be focused in under resourced parts of the world."

According to the World Health Organization, around one-third of people around the world carry TB bacteria. Of those, only between 5-10 percent become sick or infectious.

The test has been developed by Britain's Health Protection Agency. It says the test will undergo trials before going on the market, a process that could take up to two years.

A United States journal recently published details of a TB test that it says can produce a diagnosis⁸ in less than two hours.

1 tuberculosis   

n.结核病，肺结核

参考例句：

• People used to go to special health spring to recover from tuberculosis.人们常去温泉疗养胜地治疗肺结核。
• Tuberculosis is a curable disease.肺结核是一种可治愈的病。

2 advisor   

n.顾问，指导老师，劝告者

参考例句：

• They employed me as an advisor.他们聘请我当顾问。
• The professor is engaged as a technical advisor.这位教授被聘请为技术顾问。

3 molecule   

n.分子，克分子

参考例句：

• A molecule of water is made up of two atoms of hygrogen and one atom of oxygen.一个水分子是由P妈̬f婘̬ 妈̬成的。
• This gives us the structural formula of the molecule.这种方式给出了分子的结构式。

4 molecules   

分子( molecule的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The structure of molecules can be seen under an electron microscope. 分子的结构可在电子显微镜下观察到。
• Inside the reactor the large molecules are cracked into smaller molecules. 在反应堆里，大分子裂变为小分子。

5 zoom   

n.急速上升；v.突然扩大，急速上升

参考例句：

• The airplane's zoom carried it above the clouds.飞机的陡直上升使它飞到云层之上。
• I live near an airport and the zoom of passing planes can be heard night and day.我住在一个飞机场附近，昼夜都能听到飞机飞过的嗡嗡声。

6 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

7 accurately   

adv.准确地，精确地

参考例句：

• It is hard to hit the ball accurately.准确地击中球很难。
• Now scientists can forecast the weather accurately.现在科学家们能准确地预报天气。

8 diagnosis   

n.诊断，诊断结果，调查分析，判断

参考例句：

• His symptoms gave no obvious pointer to a possible diagnosis.他的症状无法作出明确的诊断。
• The engineer made a complete diagnosis of the bridge's collapse.工程师对桥的倒塌做一次彻底的调查分析。