经济学人科技 || 蝙蝠信号

原文:http://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzU1MDQwNTgzMg==&mid=2247491248&idx=1&sn=9be3f8d04f0549169538c747bc36b77f&chksm=fba04d17ccd7c4014d8f58d28e2720589e244a08bba4b9dae03804602f7b6730446452540423#rd

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 The Bat Signal

蝙蝠信号

英文部分选自经济学人20200725期科技版块

The Bat Signal

蝙蝠信号


The hunt for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 will look beyond China

新冠病毒溯源,视野转向国外


The virus may have been born in South-East Asia

病毒可能来源于东南亚


One of the great questions of the past six months is where SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes covid-19, came from. It is thought the answer involves bats, because they harbour a variety of SARS-like viruses. Yunnan, one of China’s southernmost provinces, has drawn the attention of virus hunters, as the closest-known relatives of SARS-CoV-2 are found there. But some think the origins of the virus are not to be found in China at all, but rather just across the border in Myanmar, Laos or Vietnam.


过去半年中有一个重大疑问:导致新冠肺炎的病毒(SARS-CoV-2)究竟起源何方?有人认为与蝙蝠有关,因为蝙蝠携带多种类SARS病毒。位于中国最南端的云南省引起了病毒追踪者的注意,因为在那里曾发现目前已知与新冠病毒最相近的病毒。但也有人认为,病毒的源头根本不在中国,而在中国南方国界线外的缅甸、老挝和越南。


This is the hunch of Peter Daszak, head of EcoHealth Alliance, an organisation which researches animals that harbour diseases that move into people. Since the outbreak, in 2003, of the original SARS (now known as SARS-CoV), scientists have paid close attention to coronaviruses. Dr Daszak says that around 16,000 bats have been sampled and around 100 new SARS-like viruses discovered. In particular, some bats found in China are now known to harbour coronaviruses that seem pre-adapted to infect people. The chiropteran hosts of these viruses have versions of a protein called ace2 that closely resemble the equivalent in people. This molecule is used by SARS-like viruses as a point of entry into a cell.


这是生态健康联盟主席彼得·达沙克 (Peter Daszak) 的猜想,该组织研究携带可传播给人类疾病的动物。自从2003SARS病毒(现已更名为SARS-CoV病毒)爆发以来,冠状病毒持续获得科学家密切关注。达沙克博士表示,对约一万六千只蝙蝠采样后,发现了约100种新型类SARS病毒。值得一提的是,在中国蝙蝠身上发现了通过进化后能传播给人类的冠状病毒。在宿主蝙蝠体内发现了名为血管紧张素转化酶2 (ACE2) 的蛋白质, 与人体内相应的蛋白质非常相似。类SARS病毒通过这种分子作为受体进入人体细胞。


That such virological diversity has so far been found only in China is because few people have looked at bats in countries on the other side of the border. Yet these places are likely to be an evolutionary hotspot for coronaviruses—one that mirrors bat diversity (see map). The horseshoe bats in Yunnan which harbour close relatives of SARS-CoV-2 are found across the region. Other countries are thus likely to have bats with similar viral building blocks. Dr Daszak believes it is “quite likely that bats in Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam carry similar SARS-related coronaviruses, maybe a huge diversity of them, and that some of them could be close to SARS-CoV-2”.


上述病毒目前只在中国蝙蝠体内发现,这是因为很少有人关注中国外其他国家的蝙蝠。其实,这些地区很可能是冠状病毒进化的重点地区——因为在那里蝙蝠种类繁多(见地图)。云南菊头蝠携带新冠病毒的近亲,而在这些国家也发现了菊头蝠的踪影。因此,其他国家也有携带类似病毒构件的蝙蝠。达沙克博士认为,缅甸、老挝和越南的蝙蝠很有可能携带类似SARS的冠状病毒,且病毒亚种繁多,其中几种可能与冠状病毒十分类似。” 


扩展阅读:15年后,在云南找到源头——菊头蝠

https://m.thepaper.cn/newsDetail_forward_1893843

(本图描绘了蝙蝠种类多样性的分布情况。颜色越深的地区,种类多样性越丰富。中国下方标出的三个国家从左到右分别为缅甸、老挝和越南)


None of this, though, explains how a virus whose ancestor may be found in South-East Asian bats went on to start a pandemic from central China. China’s government has agreed that a mission led by the World Health Organisation (WHO) can visit later this year to help answer this question. There is particular interest in how much sampling has been conducted to look for the missing link in places like the wildlife market in Wuhan (the first known centre of the outbreak) and more generally in farmers, traders and possible intermediate or host species.


然而,上述发现仍无法解释,起源于东南亚的蝙蝠是如何在中国中部地区引发此次疫情。中国政府已同意世界卫生组织(WHO)在今年下半年来中国进行调查、寻找答案。人们尤为关注的是,为寻找缺失的一环,在武汉野生动物市场(首例疫情爆发中心)、农民、贸易商和其他可能的中间宿主或原生宿主中,已经进行了多少次取样。


Jeremy Farrar, the head of the Wellcome Trust, a large medical-research charity, and a former professor of tropical medicine, says his guess is that either SARS-CoV-2 or something similar to it has been circulating in people in parts of South-East Asia and southern China, probably for many years, and that intermediate hosts have not yet been identified. Dr Farrar spent 18 years working in Vietnam as the head of an Oxford University research unit. He says people go searching for bats for food and sell them in markets in what is a sophisticated trade that can end up in big cities like Wuhan. Bats are able to carry a huge diversity of viruses without getting sick, and are also more mobile than people realise. As he puts it, bats “congregate in huge colonies, and poo everywhere. And then other mammals live off that poo and then act as a mixing vessel for these sorts of viruses.”


英国惠康基金会(Wellcome Trust)是一家大型的医疗研究慈善机构,其现任总裁杰里米法拉尔(Jeremy Farrar)曾是热带医学教授,据他猜测,新冠病毒或类似的冠状病毒很可能已经在东南亚和中国南方某些地区潜伏多年,但中间宿主尚不明确。法拉尔博士带领牛津大学研究小组在越南工作了18年。他发现当地人们捕食蝙蝠,并将其拿到市场上售卖,经过一系列复杂的贸易渠道,最终把蝙蝠卖到武汉这样的大城市。蝙蝠携带种类繁多的病毒但不患病,而且流动性也比人类预想的强。蝙蝠喜群居,四处排便,因此以蝙蝠粪便为生的哺乳动物就也成为了病毒的传播者,法拉尔博士如是说。


Support for the idea that something resembling SARS-CoV-2 might have been circulating in the region before the pandemic began also comes from another intriguing observation: the low incidence of covid-19 in South-East Asia, particularly in Vietnam. John Bell, a professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, says everyone thought there would be a flood of cases in Vietnam because the country is right across the border from China. Yet Vietnam has reported only 300 in a population of 100m, and no deaths. The country did not have a great lockdown either, he adds. Nobody could work out what was going on.


与新冠病毒类似的冠状病毒,早在疫情开始前就已在当地传播。另一项有趣的观察结果也能支持这一观点,在东南亚地区,尤其是越南,新冠肺炎的发病率极低。牛津大学医学教授约翰贝尔(John Bell)称,因为越南与中国接壤,大家都认为越南会成为疫情重灾区。但据报告,越南一亿人口中只有300例确诊,且无死亡病例。他还补充道,越南并没有实行严格的封城措施。没有人知晓这背后的原因。


One explanation, he suggests, is that Vietnam’s population is not as immunologically “naive” as has been assumed. The circulation of other SARS-like viruses could have conferred a generalised immunity to such pathogens. So, if a new one emerged in the region, it was able to take hold in the human population only when it travelled all the way to central China—where people did not have this natural resistance.


贝尔博士提出一种解释,与他先前的假设不同,越南人民其实对冠状病毒有一定的抵抗力。其他类SARS病毒的传播可能让当地人普遍对这类病原体产生了免疫力。所以,新的冠状病毒出现时,只有等它从越南传到中国中部时,才显示出其危害力,因为在中国人们对该病毒没有抵抗力。


This would tie in with the idea that infection with one coronavirus can provide protection against others, and that even in countries away from the evolutionary cauldron of South-East Asia part of the population may have some protection against the current pandemic. In particular, there are suggestions that protection might be conferred mainly via part of the immune system called t-cells (which work by killing virus-infected cells) rather than via antibodies (which work by gumming up pathogens). If that is the case, then serological studies which look at antibodies may be underestimating natural immunity.


这与另一种观点不谋而合:感染一种冠状病毒后,人体会对其他冠状病毒产生免疫,即使是在远离东南亚这个冠状病毒进化的聚集体,部分人也可能对新冠病毒具有一定的抵抗力。值得注意的是,有观点认为人主要通过免疫系统中的T淋巴细胞(杀灭病毒感染细胞)获得对病毒的免疫力,而非通过抗体(与病原体结合)。如果是这样,那么研究抗体的血清学可能低估了自然免疫力。


:自然免疫(natural immunity)是指各种形式的免疫功能在感染时主动发挥作用,并且不随以前某种病原体而改变。这是第一道防线的特点是应答迅速、广泛特异性、效率有限。


Sunetra Gupta, an epidemiologist at Oxford, argues that natural immunity to covid-19 is conferred by infections with seasonal coronaviruses. If correct, this has implications for the level of vaccination needed to reach herd immunity. It is widely assumed that over 50% of people need to be vaccinated to prevent a resurgence of SARS-CoV-2. In a preprint released on July 15th Dr Gupta says this figure could be much lower if a significant part of the population is already resistant to infection.


牛津大学流行病学家苏尼特拉·古普塔(Sunetra Gupta)认为,对新冠肺炎的自然免疫力来源于季节性冠状病毒感染。如果这种说法无误,就会对实现群体免疫所需的疫苗接种范围有重大影响。目前人们普遍认为,为了防止新冠病毒卷土重来,超过50%的人需要接种疫苗。在715日发布的预印报告中,古普塔博士表示,如果已有相当一部分人对新冠有免疫力,需要接种的人数可能会更少。


As for the mystery of the origin of covid-19, more answers will come when the who mission takes place, perhaps in August. The critical steps that led a South-East Asian bat virus to start a pandemic could have happened inside or outside of China—whether in wild-animal markets or farms, or in traders or hunters. The virus may have jumped directly from bats into people, or come via an intermediate species. The story is waiting to be told.


至于新冠肺炎的起源之谜,今年八月世界卫生组织开始调查后,将有更多的真相揭示。东南亚蝙蝠携带的病毒引发了此次新冠疫情,其中的关键环节可能在中国或其他国家——源头可能是野生动物市场、农民、商贩或捕猎者。新冠病毒可能由蝙蝠直接传给人类,或是通过某种中间宿主传播。真相有待揭晓。


翻译组:

无忌,心怀梦想不断努力的理想主义男孩

Nikolai,爱想象的小双鱼,蒙特雷候补生,AKB49

Iris 少女心爆棚的前职场老阿姨,现国际女子修道院MTIer,外刊爱好者


校核组:

Piggy,爱吃鱼,爱跳舞,爱睡回笼觉的小能猫,NUS食品系。

Anne,女,爱读书爱Borges的小翻译,热爱文艺,经济学人爱好者

Helen,女,坐标武汉,职业翻译,翻硕已毕业英语二笔二口,爱好陶笛洞箫古诗词


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观点|评论|思考


本周感想

Zihan,男,对冲基金,大数据工程师

追溯源头是⼀件⽆⽐困难的事情,因为在探索的环节⽤有众多因素都可能会影响我们。但这篇⽂章的妙处在于,它尝试跳出我们熟悉的探索范围,把⽬光跳过了云南的边界线。

    ⾸先,我们知道最早的病原载体是蝙蝠。⽽云南,和其南⽅边境线外的缅甸、⽼挝和越 南都有蝙蝠栖息的场所。虽然云南的菊头蝠带有SARS-CoV-2的相近病毒,但是这种 蝙蝠在南⽅边境线外的各国都有发现。⽽这些地区的蝙蝠种类繁多,这样的⽣物多样性 对病毒的进化也许起到了⼀些重要的作⽤。
    另外⼀个有趣的思考是为什么越南感染的⼈数和死亡⼈数如此的少?⼀亿⼈⼝只有300 确诊,⽽且没有死亡⼈数。这意味着越南和附近国的⼈⼝中已经普遍有了对这类病毒的 抗体。那么在有抗体的⼈群中,即使有病毒在传播也很难被得知。但当这种病毒传染到 了没有抗体的⼈群中后,才会出现爆发。 

但⽆论源头在哪里,我们现在有的数据和知识都还很难确切的讲述这次的全球疫情到底是从哪里,⼜是如何传染到全球的。


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