首页
登录
职称英语
Many people today are worried about bird flu. They are afraid that it will p
Many people today are worried about bird flu. They are afraid that it will p
游客
2023-10-17
58
管理
问题
Many people today are worried about bird flu. They are afraid that it will pass from birds to humans and that thousands of people will die in a pandemic. In 1918 a flu virus killed about 50 million people around the world. The virus was called Spanish influenza (or Spanish flu, for short)because Spanish newspapers first described the disease. Now, after nine years of work, scientists in an American laboratory in Atlanta, Georgia, have produced a copy of the Spanish flu virus. They are also going to publish the genetic sequence of the virus on the Internet and some experts are afraid that other laboratories could copy the virus.
Scientists have copied the virus because they want to understand why the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic killed so many people. In a report in the journal Science, Dr. Jeffery Taubenberger and a team of scientists in the USA show that the copied virus is extremely powerful. The scientists injected the virus into mice and the mice began to lose weight very quickly. They lost 13% of their weight in two days and all of the mice died within six days.
" I didn’ t expect it to be as lethal as it was, " Dr. Terrence Tumpey, one of the scientists in the team, told the journal Nature. In another experiment, they injected more mice with a normal type of flu. The mice lost weight at first but then they got better and did not die. The experiments showed that the mice with the Spanish flu virus had 39,000 times more flu virus in their bodies than the second group of mice.
The scientists who copied the virus say their work has already provided important information about the virus and helps to explain why it is so lethal. But other expels are worried that the virus could escape from the laboratory. " Some people will think that they have really created a biological weapon." said Professor Ronald Atlas of the University of Louisville in Kentucky. " I am even more worried now than I was before about the possibility of a flu pandemic. The 1918 flu pandemic started with bird flu and that might happen again today with Asian bird flu."
Some scientists are worried about the publication of the genetic sequence on the Internet. They are afraid that biologists could copy the virus using the information on the Internet. This could be very dangerous.
It took a long time to copy the virus. Scientists used material taken from the lungs of people who died from the flu virus in 1918. In a second report in Nature, Taubenberger and his colleagues analyzed the genetic make-up of the virus. They were surprised to find that it was completely different from all the normal human flu viruses. This probably means that Spanish flu jumped from birds to humans and did not mix with a human virus first. This is very worrying for scientists because in the past everyone believed that a pandemic was only possible if a bird flu virus mixed with a human flu virus.
Taubenberger says it is very important to know what changes in the virus caused the 1918 Spanish flu virus. This will help scientists to work out which viruses might cause a pandemic. The H5N1 bird flu in Asia is already changing and it could infect humans, he said.
Viruses have escaped from high-security labs before. The SARS virus escaped at least twice, once in Taiwan and once in Singapore, But some scientists believe a pandemic will not happen even if the virus escapes, because most people are naturally immune and there are now a lot of drugs which protect people from flu.
Questions 66—70
Answer the following questions according to the passage. [br] What is H5N1?
选项
答案
A bird flu virus.
解析
根据第七段最后一句可知,H5N1是亚洲的一种禽流感病毒,正在发生变异,有可能感染人类。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3106834.html
相关试题推荐
InBritain,therearetwooccasionseachyearwhenpeopleusuallyreceivepr
InBritain,therearetwooccasionseachyearwhenpeopleusuallyreceivepr
InBritain,therearetwooccasionseachyearwhenpeopleusuallyreceivepr
InBritain,therearetwooccasionseachyearwhenpeopleusuallyreceivepr
InBritain,therearetwooccasionseachyearwhenpeopleusuallyreceivepr
InBritain,therearetwooccasionseachyearwhenpeopleusuallyreceivepr
"Areservoirisalakethatstoreswaterforpeopletouse.LakeWindermereisi
Thereseemstobealarge______betweenpeopleemployedinserviceindustriesand
Theabilitytomotivatepeopleisa______asset.A、pricelessB、worthlessC、countle
TodayI’dliketotalkaboutwhathelpspeoplesuccessfullyintegrateintoa
随机试题
某可转换债券的面值为100元,转换价格为25元。标的股票的市场价格为28元。当前
从事证券投资咨询业务的机构及其投资咨询人员,为证券投资人或者客户提供证券投资分析
根据发光反应的体系和标记物不同,可将发光免疫分析分为A:直接化学发光免疫分析、间
共用题干 GeologyandHealth1.Theimportanc
急性出血坏死性胰腺炎所导致的休克类型是A:中毒性休克 B:低血容量性休克 C
心脏自身的血液供应来自下面哪个血管A.肺动脉 B.肺静脉 C.主动脉 D.
受老师喜爱或关注的学生,一段时间内学习成绩或其他方面都有很大进步,而受老师漠视甚
浅龋与轻度釉质发育不全的鉴别要点,除外A.好发牙位不同 B.好发部位不同 C
国务院邮政管理部门和省、自治区、直辖市邮政管理机构对邮政市场实施监督管理,应当遵
关于投资性房地产的计量模式,下列说法中正确的有()。A.已经采用公允价值模
最新回复
(
0
)