English 中文网 漫画网 爱新闻iNews 翻译论坛
中国网站品牌栏目(频道)
当前位置: Language Tips > Special Speed News VOA慢速

Mobile phones could help efforts to end malaria

[ 2012-10-23 10:32] 来源:VOA     字号 [] [] []  
免费订阅30天China Daily双语新闻手机报:移动用户编辑短信CD至106580009009

Get Flash Player

Download

From VOA Learning English, this is the TECHNOLOGY REPORT in Special English.

Researchers are studying the use of mobile phones to document the spread of malaria. The study is part of an effort to stop or control the disease.

The World Health Organization says malaria mortality rates have fallen by twenty-five percent since two thousand. Yet the disease killed an estimated six hundred fifty-five thousand people in twenty-ten.

Scientists say malaria-carrying mosquitoes cannot travel far on their own. But the insects can, and do, catch rides in the belongings of people who travel. Malaria also can be spread by people who come from an area with large numbers of malaria cases. They may show no signs of having the disease themselves.

That is what Harvard University researchers discovered in Kenya. They found that the disease mainly spreads east from the country’s Lake Victoria area with people who travel to the capital, Nairobi.

Researchers with the Harvard School of Public Health reported the finding. It was based on the mobile phone records of fifteen million Kenyans.

Caroline Buckee is an assistant professor of epidemiology at the Harvard school. She says one of the first steps in stopping malaria is to learn how human travel might be adding to its spread. She says it has been difficult to follow large population movements with methods like government census records.

“But mobile phones offer a really unique way, on an unprecedented scale, to understand how a whole population is moving around.”

In Kenya, the researchers estimated the distance and length of each phone user’s trip away from home. This information was based on messages to and from the mobile phone carrier’s twelve thousand transmission towers.

The researchers then compared that information to a map showing reports of malaria in different parts of the country. The researchers estimated each user’s probability of being infected in a given area. They also estimated the likelihood that a visitor to that area would become infected.

The result was a picture showing malaria transmission routes starting in Lake Victoria. Caroline Buckee says such evidence could influence malaria control efforts.

“One thing that you could consider is sending text messages to people coming to high risk cell towers, for example, reminding them to use a bed net. And I think those types of approaches are simple but they would hopefully target people who are asymptomatic and unaware that they are carrying parasites.”

She says researchers are investigating using mobile phone records in other areas to help identify malaria transmission routes. A report on the study was published in the Journal Science.

相关阅读

Nobel Prize in economics recognizes 'market designers'

Words and their stories: baseball terms

United Nations report urges "putting education to work"

Rare fungal meningitis outbreak in United States

(来源:VOA 编辑:Julie)

 
中国日报网英语点津版权说明:凡注明来源为“中国日报网英语点津:XXX(署名)”的原创作品,除与中国日报网签署英语点津内容授权协议的网站外,其他任何网站或单位未经允许不得非法盗链、转载和使用,违者必究。如需使用,请与010-84883631联系;凡本网注明“来源:XXX(非英语点津)”的作品,均转载自其它媒体,目的在于传播更多信息,其他媒体如需转载,请与稿件来源方联系,如产生任何问题与本网无关;本网所发布的歌曲、电影片段,版权归原作者所有,仅供学习与研究,如果侵权,请提供版权证明,以便尽快删除。
 

关注和订阅

人气排行

翻译服务

中国日报网翻译工作室

我们提供:媒体、文化、财经法律等专业领域的中英互译服务
电话:010-84883468
邮件:translate@chinadaily.com.cn