大規模流感向英國襲來,帶來的危害甚至超過恐怖主義襲擊
According to the UK's risk register, the number one threat to life isn't terrorism, it's pandemic flu. Unlike seasonal flu that strikes in the winter months, pandemic flu is a worldwide outbreak. It can emerge at any moment and as history has proven, it can be catastrophic.
英國風險表表明：生命的頭號威脅並不是恐怖主義襲擊，而是大規模流感。與冬季爆發的季節流感不同，大規模流感在全世界範圍內爆發。大規模流感會隨時出現，而且歷史證明，其危害是災難性的。In new TV show Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic, mathematician Dr Hannah Fry and emergency medic Dr Javid Abdelmoneim use app technology to 'infect' people and see how fast their virtual disease can spread in 24 hours.
在新的電視節目Contagion! The BBC Four Pandemic中，數學家漢娜·弗萊伊博士和急診醫生Javid Abdelmoneim博士使用應用技術'感染'人們，並觀察虛擬病毒在24小時內的傳播速度。Despite advances in medicine, experts admit there's still a lot they don't understand about flu infection and contagiousness, which means if a potent strain materialises, it still has the potential to devastate populations. So what do we know?
儘管醫學發展很快，但科學家承認，關於流感感染和傳染，他們仍有很多東西尚不能理解，這就意味着如果出現了一種強效的毒株，那它仍有可能給人類帶來破壞。那我們又知道什麼呢？
Origins of pandemic flu
大規模流感的來源Every so often a completely new type of flu emerges because humans aren't the only creatures that get the bug. "Flu exists in animals such as birds or pigs, and from time to time you'll get these other animal flus that cross over into humans," explains Dr Chris Chiu, a clinical senior lecturer and consultant in infectious diseases at Imperial College London.
每隔一段時間就會出現一種全新的流感，這是因爲人類並不是唯一得流感的生物。"鳥、豬等動物也會得流感，時不時的，這些動物流感也會傳染給人類，你也有可能受到感染，"Chris Chiu博士說道，他是倫敦帝國理工學院的臨牀高級講師、傳染病諮詢師。"The vast majority of people won't have any immunity against that new strain of flu, so it spreads very quickly across the world."
"大多數人無法免疫這種新型流感病毒，所以流感會在世界各地迅速傳播。"
Super-spreaders
超級傳播者The show explores the notion of super-spreaders - where one person is responsible for infecting a lot of others - and what makes some people more contagious than others. "The concept of super spreaders has been around for over 100 years but mainly in the context of other infections," explains Dr Chiu. An example is cook Mary Mallon, born in 1869 and nicknamed Typhoid Mary.
這個節目探討了超級傳播者的概念--也就是一個人會傳染很多其他人--以及爲什麼有些人比其他人更容易受感染。"超級傳播者的概念已經存在100多年了，但主要是在其它感染的情況下出現，"Chiu博士解釋道。其中一個例子就是瑪麗·馬隆廚師，她生於1869年，綽號傷寒瑪麗。She was thought to have infected so many people she was quarantined on an island near New York where she died 23 years later. "In flu infections it's not been easy to uncover who super-spreaders are because when flu appears it's very common, so it's almost impossible to track down whether a single person has infected two or 100 people," says Dr Chiu.
人們認爲她感染了很多人，以至於被帶到一個靠近紐約的島上隔離了，23年後，她在島上去世。"在流感感染的過程中，很難發現誰是超級傳播者，因爲當時流感已經十分普遍，所以幾乎無法追蹤到是否是一個人感染了2個或100個人，"Chiu博士說道。
