世卫组织称利比里亚新增埃博拉病例减少

GENEVA — Three months after declaring West Africa’s Ebola epidemic a global emergency, the World Health Organization said Wednesday that new infections in Liberia, one of the worst affected countries, appeared to be declining. But the organization also warned against complacency in international efforts to fight the disease.

日内瓦——在宣布西非的埃博拉疫情为全球紧急状况的三个月后，世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)周三称，作为疫情最严重的国家之一，利比里亚的新增病例似乎正在减少。但该组织也警告说，抗击埃博拉的国际行动不能因此而自满。

The health authorities in Liberia are reporting lower numbers of new infections; treatment centers in the capital, Monrovia, that once turned away victims now had unoccupied beds; and the number of burials of Ebola victims had started to drop, Dr. Bruce Aylward, the W.H.O. assistant director-general, told reporters in Geneva.

WHO助理总干事布鲁斯·艾尔沃德博士(Bruce Aylward)在日内瓦告诉记者，利比里亚卫生部门报告的新增感染人数正在减少；该国首都蒙罗维亚的治疗中心一度曾把患者拒之门外，现在则有了空床位；埃博拉患者的死亡人数已经开始下降。

“Do we feel confident that the response is now getting an upper hand on the virus? Yes, we are seeing a slowing of the rate of new cases very definitely” in Liberia, said Dr. Aylward, who is in charge of the operational response to the epidemic.

“我们是否相信，目前的应对措施已经控制住了埃博拉病毒？是的，我们看到，利比里亚的新增病例出现了明显的下降，”负责埃博拉应对行动的艾尔沃德说。

At least 13,703 people have been infected by the virus, all but 27 of them in the three worst affected countries of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, according to the latest estimates cited by Dr. Aylward. Nearly half of the total is in Liberia.

根据艾尔沃德援引的最新统计数据，目前至少有13703人感染埃博拉病毒，其中除了27人之外，其余全部来自三个疫情最严重的国家：几内亚、利比里亚和塞拉利昂。全部的感染病例中，近一半来自利比里亚。

About 5,000 of the infected are reported to have died of the disease, which Dr. Aylward said still has a mortality rate of around 70 percent in the three countries most afflicted.

感染者中据称已有5000人死亡，艾尔沃德说，在疫情最严重的三个国家，埃博拉患者的死亡率仍在70%左右。

Despite the positive data from Liberia, Dr. Aylward was cautious. He expressed concern that infection rates could start to oscillate and that areas thought to have been purged of the disease could become reinfected.

尽管利比里亚的数据给人希望，艾尔沃德仍然持谨慎态度。他担心，感染率可能会开始上下波动，在据信已经消灭了埃博拉病毒的地区，病毒也可能会卷土重来。

“I am terrified that the information will be misinterpreted and people will start to think, ‘Oh, great, this is under control,’ ” he said. “That’s like saying your pet tiger is under control. This is a very, very dangerous disease.”

“我非常担心这个消息可能会被误解，人们会开始认为，‘噢，太好了，埃博拉已经得到控制，’”他说。“这就像是说，你能控制自己养的宠物老虎一样。埃博拉可是一种非常、非常危险的疾病。”

Just a few mishandled burials, Dr. Aylward said, could “start a whole new transmission chain and the disease starts trending upward again.”

艾尔沃德说，哪怕是少数的死亡病例处理不当，都可能“产生全新的传播链条，使疫情再次呈现扩大的态势”。

The first death from Ebola in Mali last week underscored the danger that the disease will spill into neighboring countries. W.H.O. data shows new cases of infection in all but two of the districts in Guinea and Liberia that border Ivory Coast.

马里上周出现了首个埃博拉死亡病例，突显了疫情蔓延至邻国的危险。世卫组织的数据显示，在几内亚和利比里亚，除了与科特迪瓦接壤的两个地区外，其他地区均出现了新增感染病例。

Dr. Aylward partly attributed the apparent easing in Liberia to aggressive efforts to establish safe burials of victims, who are most contagious at death.

艾尔沃德博士认为，利比里亚疫情似乎有所缓解，部分原因在于积极采取措施，确保患者得到安全掩埋。患者死亡时，传染性是最强的。

He also said the Liberia government’s intensive public education campaign to minimize contact with the infected, and a rapid increase in the capacity of treatment centers to isolate patients, appeared to have helped.

他还表示，利比里亚政府为了尽量减少民众与感染者的接触，开展了紧密的公共教育，为了隔离患者，也迅速增强了治疗中心的承载能力。这些举措似乎都起到了帮助。

Fifteen treatment centers are now operating in the three worst hit countries, and another 22 should be functional by the end of November.

目前，在疫情最严重的这三个国家，共有15家治疗中心在运行。预计到11月底，另外22家也将投入使用。

Still, achieving a drop in day-to-day infection rates is not ending the epidemic, which Dr. Aylward called “a completely different ballgame.”

然而，实现感染率逐日下降，并不等于消灭疫情。艾尔沃德称，那是“一种截然不同的情形”。

The better news from Liberia comes only two weeks after the W.H.O. warned the epidemic could produce 10,000 new cases every week by December. Dr. Aylward did not discard that assessment, but said it would be reviewed.

就在利比里亚传来好消息的两周前，世卫组织警告称，在12月前，每周可能会有1万人新感染埃博拉病毒。艾尔沃德没有完全放弃这一估计数字，但表示会对其进行调整。

The positive trend seen in Liberia should be taken as a sign that with the planned investments, “this virus can be stopped,” Dr. Aylward said. “But it’s going to take a very, very aggressive program of work to capitalize on those opportunities.”

艾尔沃德表示，应当把利比里亚出现的积极趋势当做一个迹象，它表明凭借原计划的投入，“这种病毒可以遏制。但需要执行一个非常非常积极的工作计划，才能抓住那些机会。”

The Ebola virus, which has no confirmed cure, began to spread in Liberia, Guinea and Sierra Leone in March. It is now considered one of the worst global health emergencies in modern times.

埃博拉病毒于3月开始在利比里亚、几内亚和塞拉利昂扩散，目前还没有得到证实的治疗方法。目前，埃博拉被认为是现代历史上最严重的全球突发公共卫生事件之一。

Dr. Margaret Chan, the W.H.O.’s director-general, has spoken in increasingly dire terms about the Ebola outbreak and the need to stop it. She told an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council last month that the outbreak was “likely the greatest peacetime challenge that the United Nations and its agencies have ever faced.”

世卫组织总干事陈冯富珍博士(Margaret Chan)在谈论埃博拉疫情，以及阻止疫情的必要性时，措辞越来越紧迫。她上个月在联合国安理会召开的一次紧急会议上表示，埃博拉“可能是联合国及其机构有史以来在和平时期面临的最大挑战”。