西班牙埃博拉患者寵物狗被安樂死

MADRID — A dog named Excalibur who belonged to an Ebola-infected nurse was euthanized on Wednesday, even as protesters and animal rights activists surrounded the Madrid home of the nurse and her husband. A online petition calling for the dog's life to be spared had drawn hundreds of thousands of signatures.

馬德里——週三，一名感染埃博拉病毒的護士的狗被實施了安樂死，儘管抗議者和動物權益活動人士包圍了這名護士及其丈夫在馬德里的住所。這條狗名叫埃克斯卡利伯(Excalibur)。網上一封呼籲放這條狗一條生路的請願書，目前已獲得了數以萬計的簽名。

The furor came amid questions about whether dogs can get and transmit the disease.

羣情激奮之時，有人質疑狗是否會感染以及傳播這種疾病。

In the United States, a spokesman for the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Thomas Skinner, said Wednesday that studies had shown that dogs can have an immune response to Ebola, meaning that they can become infected. But he said there had been no reports of dogs or cats developing Ebola symptoms or passing the disease to other animals or to people.

美國疾病控制與預防中心（Centers for Disease Control and Prevention，簡稱CDC）發言人托馬斯·斯金納(Thomas Skinner)週三表示，研究表明，狗能對埃博拉病毒產生免疫反應，這意味着它們可能也會受到感染。但是他說，目前尚無狗或貓出現埃博拉病症或者把這種疾病傳播給其他動物或人類的報告。

The death of Excalibur, a 12-year-old rescue dog, was confirmed to reporters by Javier Rodríguez, an official from Madrid's regional government, and the body is expected to be cremated.

埃克斯卡利伯是一條12歲的搜救犬，馬德里地區政府官員哈維爾·羅德里格斯(Javier Rodríguez)向記者證實了它的死亡，它的屍體將被火化。

The nurse's husband had pleaded publicly with officials in Madrid to change their minds about euthanizing the dog. He told the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that there was no indication that Excalibur had been infected with Ebola. The nurse has been identified as María Teresa Romero Ramos.

這名護士的丈夫曾公開請求馬德里官員改變主意，不要對埃克斯卡利伯實施安樂死。他告訴西班牙報紙《世界報》(El Mundo)，沒有跡象表明埃克斯卡利伯感染了埃博拉病毒。這名護士被認定爲瑪麗亞·特雷莎·羅梅羅·拉莫斯(María Teresa Romero Ramos)。

The fate of the dog ignited a frenzy online. More than 350,000 people signed the petition to save his life. By comparison, about 150,000 people have signed a petition urging the Food and Drug Administration to fast-track research on a potential vaccine and treatment for Ebola.

這條狗的命運引起了網民的憤怒。共有35萬人在請願書上簽名，希望能挽救它的生命。相比之下，大約15萬人在一封請願書上簽名，敦促食品與藥品管理局（Food and Drug Administration，簡稱FDA）加快對埃博拉疫苗和治療方案的研究。

Twitter erupted, with pleas in both English and Spanish to save Excalibur's life.

Twitter上的反應也很強烈，人們用英語和西班牙語發表請願，要求拯救埃克斯卡利伯的生命。

#saveexcaliber SAVE THE R HAS ANTINE THE DOG MURDER HIM

#saveexcaliber 救救這狗……主人感染了埃博拉……把狗也給隔離了……不要殺害他

Then, after Excalibur was euthanized, came tweets using the hashtag #RIPExcalibur.

隨後，在埃克斯卡利伯被實施安樂死後，有推文開始使用 #RIPExcalibur 的標籤。

#RIPExcalibur hating this world so damn much today.

#RIPExcalibur 今天無比厭惡這個世界。

Some also suggested that more attention was being focused on the dog than on Ebola's human victims.

有人則提出人們把更多的注意力放在了狗上，而不是埃博拉病毒的人類受害者。

Nearly 4,000 people in West Africa have died during the current Ebola epidemic, and global health authories expect to see thousands more infections there. The Spanish nurse became the first person to become infected outside West Africa. The only case diagnosed in the United States has been that of a Liberian man who had traveled from Liberia to Dallas and died in a hospital there Wednesday. Three infected American aid workers were transferred from West Africa to American hospitals and treated successfully, and a freelance cameraman for NBC who became infected in Liberia has been transferred to a hospital in Nebraska, where he is undergoing treatment.

在西非，共有將近4000人在目前的埃博拉疫情中喪生，全球各地的衛生官員認爲，將來還會有數千人會受感染。這名西班牙護士成了西非以外地區受感染的第一人。美國的唯一確診案例是一名利比里亞籍男子，他曾從利比里亞去往達拉斯，並於週三在那裏的一家醫院死亡。有關部門把三名受感染的美國救援工作者從西非轉移到了美國醫院，他們在那裏得到了很好的治療，一名在利比里亞受感染的NBC自由攝影記者被轉移到了內布拉斯加州的一家醫院，目前正在那裏接受治療。

Mr. Skinner said the disease centers were recommending that Ebola patients with dogs or cats at home "evaluate the animal's risk of exposure," meaning they should assess how likely it is that the animal has ingested bodily fluids like blood, vomit and feces from the patient. If the animal has been exposed, it should be monitored for 21 days, the incubation period for the disease. Mr. Skinner said the C.D.C. was working with the American Veterinary Medical Association to study the issue and develop guidance for pets in the United States.

斯金納稱，疾病預防和控制中心正在建議家中有狗或貓的埃博拉患者“評估動物的接觸風險”，也就是說他們應該評估動物攝入患者的血液等體液，以及嘔吐物和排泄物的可能性有多大。如果動物已經接觸了病毒，應將其觀察21天。21天是埃博拉病毒的潛伏期。斯金納稱，CDC正在與美國獸醫協會(American Veterinary Medical Association)合作，研究這個問題，並制定針對美國寵物的指導意見。

In a 2005 study of dogs in Gabon done after an Ebola outbreak in 2001-02, researchers found that dogs can be infected with the virus, but that they show no symptoms.

埃博拉在2001年至2002年期間爆發後，研究人員在2005年對加蓬的狗進行的一項研究中發現，狗可能會感染該病毒，但它們未表現出症狀。

The study, published in Emerging Infectious Diseases, a C.D.C. journal, tested dogs in two villages in the heart of the Ebola outbreak, as well as dogs in a city with some human Ebola cases, dogs in distant villages and a control group of dogs in France. Of 159 dogs tested from the two villages, 40 had Ebola antigens in their blood. This rate was significantly higher than the prevalence of antigens found in dogs in the city with some human cases, three times higher than the dogs several hundred miles from the outbreak, and much higher than the dogs in France. Two out of 102 dogs tested in France had antigens for Ebola.

發表在CDC期刊《新生感染性疾病》(Emerging Infectious Diseases)上的該研究，對位於那一輪埃博拉爆發的中心的兩個村子，以及出現了一些感染埃博拉病例的一座城市、偏遠村莊和法國一個控制組的狗進行了測試。那兩個村子共有159條狗接受了測試，其中40條狗的血液中含有埃博拉抗原。這一比例，明顯高於出現了人感染埃博拉病例的那座城市的狗，是距病毒爆發地幾百英里的狗的三倍多，同時也遠高於法國的狗。法國有102條狗接受了測試，僅2條狗體內發現了埃博拉抗原。

The researchers said the possibility that pet dogs could become infected and transmit the virus to humans could not be ruled out. They noted that pet dogs in Gabon, as in many parts of Africa, probably have greater access to the wild animals that are the source of Ebola infections because African dogs often scavenge for food, eating small animals and organs from carcasses of wild animals killed by hunters, some of which were sources of human Ebola cases in Gabon.

研究人員稱，不能排除寵物狗感染病毒並將其傳播給人類這個可能性。他們指出，和非洲許多地區一樣，加蓬的寵物狗接觸野生動物的可能性更大，因爲非洲的狗經常覓食，吃小動物和被獵人打死的野生動物的器官。野生動物是埃博拉感染的源頭，其中部分野生動物正是加蓬人感染埃博拉病例的根源。

"We observed that some dogs ate fresh remains of Ebola virus — infected dead animals brought back to the villages — and that others licked vomit from Ebola virus-infected patients," the researchers reported.

“我們觀察到，一些狗吃了感染了埃博拉病毒的動物的新鮮遺骸——這些動物屍體被帶回了那些村子——其他一些狗舔過感染了埃博拉病毒的患者的嘔吐物，”這些研究人員通報稱。

None of the dogs in the study showed symptoms, unlike wild animals. In gorillas and chimpanzees, Ebola infection is often lethal, the study said. Still, it is possible that dogs exposed to Ebola could be a potential source of human infection if people come in contact with viral particles in dog urine, feces or saliva through "licking, biting, or grooming," the study said.

不同於野生動物，研究中的那些狗沒有一條表現出了症狀。該研究稱，在大猩猩和黑猩猩身上，埃博拉感染通常是致命的。但研究稱，接觸過埃博拉的狗可能是潛在的人類感染源頭，因爲人可能會通過“狗的舔、咬或給其梳毛刷洗”，接觸狗的尿液、排泄物或唾液中的病毒顆粒。

"Given the frequency of contact between humans and domestic dogs," it said, "canine Ebola infection must be considered as a potential risk factor for human infection and virus spread."

“考慮到人類與家裏的狗的接觸頻率，”研究稱，“必須將犬類埃博拉感染視作人類感染，以及病毒擴散的一種潛在風險因素。”