STARSET_MirrorTSS EXCLUSIVE: Coronavirus, Disease X, and How Humanity Will Survive the Next Pandemic
by Rhodilee Jean Dolor
In 2018, the World Health Organization included a still unknown disease to its blueprint for research on priority diseases that are most likely to cause a global pandemic.
2018年，世界卫生组织(World Health Organization)在其研究重点疾病的蓝图中加入了一种仍不为人知的疾病，这些疾病最有可能导致全球大流行。
Disease X
X病毒
WHO called this new potential threat “Disease X” and ranked it among the likes of Ebola, the Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), which all caused serious illnesses and fatalities in regions they affected.
世卫组织将这种新的潜在威胁称为“疾病X”，并将其列为埃博拉病毒、中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒(MERS-CoV)和严重急性呼吸综合征(SARS)等疾病之一，这些疾病均在其影响地区造成严重疾病和死亡。
“Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease,” WHO said. “So the R&D Blueprint explicitly seeks to enable cross-cutting R&D preparedness that is also relevant for an unknown “Disease X” as far as possible.”
世界卫生组织(WHO)讲述：“X病毒代表着一种新的认知，即一种目前还不知道会导致人类疾病的病原体可能导致严重的国际流行病；因此，研发的相关蓝图明确地寻求让研发准备工作尽可能地与未知的‘X病毒’相关。”
The United Nations agency said that Disease X could be caused by an unknown pathogen that can cause human disease, and the disease may go unnoticed until it is too late when it has already spread fast.
该联合国机构表示：X病毒可能是由一种未知的病原体引起的，这种病原体可能会导致人类疾病，而这种疾病可能会被忽视直到它已经迅速传播，但实际上已经为时已晚了。
“The question is not if we will have another pandemic, but when. We must be vigilant and prepared,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus warned in a statement released in March 2019.
“问题不在于我们是否会有另一场大流行，而是在于何时；我们必须保持警惕并做好准备。”世卫组织总干事Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus在2019年3月发布的一份声明中警告说。
Is The Novel Coronavirus The Dreaded Disease X?
新型冠状病毒是可怕的X病毒吗?
As of March 3, the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) has infected over 90,000, killing over 3,000 worldwide, with cases in 70 countries while concentrated in China, South Korea, Iran, Italy, Japan, and the United States. Experts fear the disease could evolve into an extremely serious epidemic, possibly the Disease X that WHO has spoken about.
截至3月3日(2020)，新型冠状病毒(2019-nCoV)已在全球感染9万多人，导致3000多人死亡，病例分布在70个国家，主要集中在中国、韩国、伊朗、意大利、日本和美国；专家担心这种疾病可能演变成一种极其严重的流行病，很有可能是世卫组织所说的X病毒。
The 2019-nCoV has the likely attributes of Disease X. The 2019-nCoV virus belongs to a family of coronavirus that the deadly MERS-CoV and SARS belong to.
2019-nCoV病毒可能具有X病毒的特征；2019-nCoV病毒属于冠状病毒家族，致命的MERS-CoV和SARS属于该病毒家族。
Virologists and epidemiologists also think that a pathogen that jumps from animals to humans could be the likely source of a pandemic. Corona viruses are zoonotic viruses, which means that they can be transmitted between animals and humans. The patients infected with the 2019-nCoV at the end of December all had ties to the Hunan Seafood Market in Wuhan where live fish meat and wild animals are sold. Researchers think that the virus likely mutated from a coronavirus common in animals and infected humans in the wet market.
病毒学家和流行病学家还认为，从动物传染给人类的病原体可能是大流行的源头；冠状病毒是人畜共患病病毒，这就意味着它们可以在动物和人类之间传播；在12月底感染2019-nCoV的患者都与武汉的湖南海鲜市场有关，因为那里出售活的鱼肉和野生动物：研究人员认为，这种病毒可能是由一种冠状病毒变异而来，这种病毒在动物和菜市场上的感染者中很常见。
The disease is also spreading like wildfire. From a seemingly isolated outbreak in China, the coronavirus has spread to other nations including Japan, Germany, Canada, the United States and the Philippines just weeks after Chinese health officials reported the illness to WHO on Christmas eve.
这种疾病也像野火一样蔓延；冠状病毒在中国似乎是一次孤立的爆发，在中国卫生官员于圣诞夜向世卫组织报告该疾病几周后，它已经蔓延到其他国家，包括日本、德国、加拿大、美国和菲律宾。
Hunt For Vaccine And Cure
寻找疫苗和治疗方法
Amid fears of 2019-nCoV becoming the next pandemic, researchers are beating the clock to find a cure and vaccine that can help save humanity from a disease that can potentially infect thousands more.
在人们担心2019-nCoV会成为下一个大流行之际，研究人员正在争分夺秒地寻找一种治疗方法和疫苗，以帮助人类摆脱这种可能感染数千人的疾病。
No vaccine for the 2019-nCoV is currently available, albeit China’s National Medical Products Administration has green-lighted the use of the antiviral drug Favilavir as experimental treatment for the disease. Research into the characteristics of the virus offers hope for a better cure and vaccine.
目前还没有针对2019-nCoV的疫苗，尽管中国国家药品监督管理局已经批准使用抗病毒药物Favilavir作为该疾病的试验性治疗，对其病毒特性的研究为更好的治疗方法和疫苗提供了希望。
Chinese researchers published a sequence of 2019-CoV in a public database that allowed laboratories worldwide to develop their own diagnostics for the virus. The work was followed by a breakthrough in Australia, where scientists successfully grew the Wuhan coronavirus in laboratory.
中国研究人员在一个公共数据库中公布了2019-CoV的序列，这使得世界各地的实验室能够开发自己的病毒诊断方法；这项工作在澳大利亚取得了重大突破，科学家们在实验室成功培育出了新型冠状病毒。
All these provide researchers with crucial information on how to fight the virus, prevent it from spreading further, and protect people against it.
所有这些都为研究人员提供了如何对抗病毒、防止病毒进一步传播和保护人们免受感染的重要信息。
The situation is still grim, but the developments and efforts being made to address the current outbreak could be key to how humanity becomes better equipped at combating the next pandemic.
形势仍然如此严峻，但为应对当前的疫情而采取的发展和努力可能是人类如何更好地准备应对下一次大流行的关键。
Combating The Next Global Pandemic
抗击下一次全球大流行
A crucial ammunition against the next pandemic is an effective vaccine, one that can provide people with immunity and prevent diseases from spreading.
对付下一次大流行的一种重要武器是一种有效的疫苗，这种疫苗可以为人们提供免疫力并防止疾病传播
Richard Hatchett, CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI), said that while the emergence of infectious diseases can be inevitable, vaccines are a powerful tool in fighting epidemic diseases.
流行病防备创新联盟(CEPI)首席执行官理查德·哈切特(Richard Hatchett)说：“虽然传染病的出现是不可避免的，但疫苗是抗击流行病的有力工具。”
CEPI is a nonprofit formed in 2016 to provide funding that can spur the development of new vaccines against emerging infectious diseases. It recently announced funding programs to develop vaccines against the 2019-nCoV with the hope of making a vaccine available for testing the earliest possible time.
CEPI是一个于2016年成立的非营利组织，其宗旨是提供资金，以刺激针对新出现的传对于染病的新疫苗的开发，它最近宣布资助开发2019-nCoV疫苗的项目，希望能尽早研制出用于测试的疫苗。
The Inovio lab in San Diego uses DNA technology to find vaccines that can strengthen the body’s defense against diseases. It recently developed a potential 2019-nCoV vaccine dubbed “INO-4800” that could be tested on humans by early summer. Inovio senior vice-president of research and development Kate Broderick said that they were able to design a vaccine within three hours after Chinese researchers provided the DNA sequence of the virus.
圣地亚哥的Inovio实验室利用DNA技术找到了可以增强人体抵御疾病的疫苗；该公司最近开发了一种名为“INO-4800”的2019-nCoV疫苗，有望在初夏之前进行人体试验；Inovio负责研发的高级副总裁凯特·布罗德里克(Kate Broderick)表示，在中国研究人员提供了病毒的DNA序列后，他们能够在3小时内设计出一种疫苗。
“Our DNA medicine vaccines are novel in that they use DNA sequences from the virus to target specific parts of the pathogen which we believe the body will mount the strongest response to,” Broderick said. “We then use the patient’s own cells to become a factory for the vaccine, strengthening the body’s own natural response mechanisms.”
Broderick说:“我们的DNA药物疫苗是全新的，它们使用病毒的DNA序列来针对病原体的特定部分，我们相信人体将对这些部分产生最强烈的反应，然后我们利用病人自己的细胞来制造疫苗，并加强人体自身的自然反应机制。”
Works on diagnostics and potential treatments also make remarkable progress. Sherlock Biosciences in Massachusetts uses CRISPR-based and synthetic biology platforms to develop a reliable test for coronavirus. The company’s CEO Rahul Dhanda said that these CRISPR-based platforms are tailor-made for outbreaks.
诊断和潜在治疗方面的工作也取得了显著进展；马萨诸塞州的夏洛克(Sherlock)生物科学公司利用CRISPR-based和合成生物学平台开发了一种可靠的冠状病毒检测方法；该公司首席执行官拉胡尔·丹(Rahul Dhanda)达表示，这些基于CRISPR-based的平台是为疾病爆发量身定做的。
Canada-based AbCellera is working on identifying antibodies that can neutralize 2019-nCoV and potentially block its transmission. Ester Falconer, head of research and development at AbCellera said that the company’s antibody discovery technology is aimed at addressing pandemic situations.
加拿大的AbCellera公司正致力于识别能够中和2019-nCoV并可能阻断其传播的抗体，AbCellera的研发负责人埃斯特·福尔科纳(Ester Falconer)表示，该公司的抗体发现技术旨在应对流感大流行的情况。
“The unprecedented throughput and speed of AbCellera’s screening technology makes it particularly well-suited to pandemic situations like the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, where deploying a therapeutic quickly is an important factor to help control transmission,” Falconer said. “We have been preparing for exactly this scenario, and we are ready to tackle this threat.”
Falconer说:“AbCellera公司的筛检技术的空前产量和速度使其特别适合于新型冠状病毒疫情这样的大流行情况，在那里迅速部署一种治疗手段是帮助控制传播的一个重要因素；我们一直在为这种情况做准备，我们并且已经准备好应对这种威胁了。”
Collaboration also matters, and this is exactly what the WHO has been initiating. The UN agency recently convened key players for a global research and innovation forum with the objective of addressing the coronavirus outbreak.
合作也很重要——这正是世界卫生组织所倡导的；这个联合国机构最近召集了一个全球研究和创新论坛的主要参与者——目的是应对冠状病毒的爆发。
WHO said that experts will utilize existing SARS and MERS coronavirus research, as well as identify knowledge gaps and research priorities to accelerate scientific information and medical products that can minimize the impact of the outbreak. This strategy can help speed up the development of medical tools and vaccines and hopefully improve mankind’s odds for survival in the face of a pandemic.
世界卫组织表示，专家将利用现有的SARS和中东呼吸综合征冠状病毒研究并确定知识空白和研究重点，以加快科学信息和医疗产品的开发，最大限度地减少疫情的影响。这一战略有助于加快医疗工具和疫苗的开发，并有望提高人类在面对大流行时的生存几率。
翻译：SGCS翻译组
