By Imogen Foulkes, BBC News, Geneva
Some scientists want to keep the virus alive in case they need to create a vaccine
媒体英语会带大家一起学习 BBC 撰稿人在报道世界大事时常用到的单词和短语。
Background: 世界卫生组织成员国在日内瓦开会并投票决定将销毁致命性天花病毒标本的决定再延迟三年。
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Smallpox was eradicated in 1979 - but two stocks of live smallpox virus remain.
For years the debate over what to do with them has raged - in Geneva developing countries argued it was high time to destroy all known samples of a virus which in the past claimed millions of lives.
But the United States and Russia, the two countries which hold the virus samples - wanted to keep them for at least another five years - saying that if smallpox ever re-emerged - either by accident or even deliberately - the samples could be needed to create a vaccine.
That argument seemed finally, after days of division, to sway member states, and they approved a compromise - postponing a decision on destroying the virus samples for another three years.
And so the fate of one of the world's deadliest viruses is still not decided - and the debate over whether the world is safer with it, or without it, will continue.
Glossary 词汇表 (收听发音, 请单击英语单词)
- to eradicate消除，根除
- to rage激愤
- high time到时候了
- a sample标本
- to re-emerge重新出现
- deliberately故意地
- to sway使动摇
- a compromise妥协
- to postpone推迟
- the fate of命运
Questions:
- 1. Why did Russia and the US want to keep the virus alive?
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They argued that it was in case the diesase came back and samples were needed to produce a vaccine.
- 2. How long did they want to keep the samples for?
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For five years.
- 3. True or false? There is fear that someone could be willing to bring back the disease.
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True. It could be spread deliberately in the future, maybe as a biological weapon.
- 4. True or false? The WHO has decided that the virus will be destroyed in three years.
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False. The WHO has decided that in three years time there will be another vote to decide if the virus will be destroyed.
© MMIX