经济学人下载:一种新型的冠状病毒 祈求好运

Science and technology
科学技术

A novel coronavirus
一种新型的冠状病毒

Fingers crossed
祈求好运

A new virus worries a twitchy world
一个新病毒令焦躁的世界惶惶不安

MOST of the time, for most people, respiratory diseases such as influenza and the common cold are little more than a snotty inconvenience.
对于大多数人来说，诸如流感和普通感冒这样的呼吸系统疾病在大多数时候带给他们的不便不过是不时流出来的鼻涕罢了。

Occasionally, though, the viruses that cause them mutate into something truly nasty.
不过引起这些疾病的病毒偶尔也会变异成异常凶险的东西。

The Spanish flu of 1918 may have killed more people than the first world war.
死于1918年西班牙流感的人数可能比死于第一次世界大战的人数还要多。

More recently, there have been worries about Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome in 2003 and a strain of flu known as H5N1 in 2008, though neither created the pandemic researchers feared they might.
近几年，人们曾经担心过2003爆发的严重急性呼吸综合症和2008年爆发的H5N1流感，不过最终两者都未发展为研究人员担心的大规模流行疾病。

Now such viruses are in the news again.
现在新闻里又出现了此类病毒的报道。

Over the past few months two men have been ill with a previously unrecorded type.
在过去的几个月中，已有两名男子因未曾记录过的病毒类型而致病。

One, in Saudi Arabia, has died.
其中，在沙特阿拉伯的一名病人已死亡。

The other, who had recently been there, is seriously ill in a London hospital.
另一名病人此前刚去过那里，现正在一家伦敦医院，情况危重。

According to the World Health Organisation, the culprit is a sort of coronavirus, the same family as the bug that causes SARS.
根据世界卫生组织的消息，罪魁祸首是一种冠状病毒，与造成SARS的病毒属于同一类。

Having had close calls with both SARS and H5N1, the world is watching and waiting to see if this new virus possesses the combination of infectiousness and lethality that made those two diseases such a worry.
在侥幸逃过SARS和H5N1后，全世界正在密切注视着这种新病毒是否结合了之前两种病毒的高传染性和致命性，正是这两种特性使得这两个疾病令人们担心不已。

With a sample size that so far stands at just two, it is hard to know much for certain, although the new bug seems to cause rapid kidney failure in those it infects.
由于迄今为止样本量只有2例，所知有限，虽然已有证据表面这种新的传染病似乎会让其感染者的肾脏快速衰竭。

The WHO is looking for other cases, but for now most bug-watchers seem cautiously relaxed.
WHO正在寻找其他病例，但至少现在大多数的病毒专家似乎持谨慎乐观态度。

Indeed, it may be that its discovery shows how well the world's health-monitoring system is working.
事实上，该病毒被世人发现可能正说明了世界健康监视系统正运转正常。

Andrew Easton, a virologist at the University of Warwick, reckons the new bug may have come to doctors' attention only because of the surveillance systems set up in the wake of SARS and H5N1.
Warwick大学的病毒专家Andrew Easton估计这种新病毒能吸引医生的注意正是因为在SARS和H5N1后建立起来的监视系统。