研究表明，機場的總體衛(wèi)生狀況對流行病的傳播有著巨大的影響

研究表明，機場的總體衛(wèi)生狀況對流行病的傳播有著巨大的影響

People really suck at washing their hands. In fact, research shows that only about 70 percent of people wash their hands after going to the toilet.

人們真的不擅長洗手。事實上，研究表明，只有大約70%的人在上完廁所后洗手。

The inescapable grossness of that staggering statistic borders on being comical. But there's really nothing funny about it, considering people around the world die every day from infectious diseases that could be dramatically mitigated if only people bothered to practise good hand hygiene.

這一驚人的統(tǒng)計數(shù)字不可避免地顯得粗鄙可笑。但這真的沒什么好笑的，想想世界各地每天都有人死于傳染性疾病，如果人們愿意保持良好的手部衛(wèi)生，這些疾病本可以得到顯著緩解。

"Seventy percent of the people who go to the toilet wash their hands afterwards," says physicist and data scientist Christos Nicolaides from the University of Cyprus and MIT.

塞浦路斯大學和麻省理工學院的物理學家和數(shù)據(jù)科學家克里斯托·尼克萊德斯說:“70%上廁所的人事后都會洗手。”

"The other 30 percent don't. And of those that do, only 50 percent do it right."

“另外30%的人沒有。而在洗手的那些人中，只有50%做對了。”

What are the real-life consequences of this abject failure to keep our hands clean? They're dire, new research from Nicolaides and his team suggests – particularly with regard to the way that contagion can rapidly spread throughout the world due to air travel, which has the power to turn epidemics into pandemics, and frighteningly quickly.

這種可悲的洗手失敗在現(xiàn)實生活中會產生什么后果呢?來自尼克萊德斯和他的團隊的最新研究表明，它們是可怕的——特別是關于傳染病可以通過空中旅行在世界范圍內迅速傳播的方式，空中旅行具有將流行病轉變成大流行的能力，而且速度快得可怕。

That's something health authorities around the world are desperately trying to prevent right now in the grim midst of the Wuhan coronavirus. And it's something we can help with, the new study finds, if only people washed their hands better at airports.

在武漢冠狀病毒肆虐的情況下，世界各地的衛(wèi)生部門正在竭盡全力防止這種情況的發(fā)生。這項新研究發(fā)現(xiàn)，只要人們在機場能更好地洗手，我們就能在這方面提供幫助。

Using epidemiological modelling and Monte Carlo simulations, the researchers calculated that increasing the amount of people with clean hands in airports would significantly lower the transmission of infections, lowering the likelihood of epidemics turning into pandemics.

通過流行病學建模和蒙特卡羅模擬，研究人員計算出，在機場增加洗手人數(shù)將顯著降低感染的傳播，降低流行病演變?yōu)榇罅餍械目赡苄浴?/p>

"Our simulation results suggests that, if we were able to increase the level of hand cleanliness at all airports in the world from 20 percent to 30 percent … a potential infectious disease would have a worldwide impact that is about 24 percent smaller," the authors write in their study.

作者在他們的研究中寫道:“我們的模擬結果表明，如果我們能夠將全球所有機場的手部清潔水平從20%提高到30%……那么一種潛在的傳染病對全球的影響將減少24%左右。”

"Increasing the level of hand cleanliness to 60 percent at all airports in the world would have a reduction of 69 percent in the impact of a potential disease spreading."

“將全球所有機場的手部清潔度提高到60%，將減少69%的潛在疾病傳播的影響。”

Even though we should all be washing our hands already (and should know the importance of it), the authors acknowledge that due to reasons of practicality and cost, it wouldn't be easy to quickly ramp up hand hygiene practice and awareness in all airports.

盡管我們都應該洗手(而且應該知道洗手的重要性)，但作者承認，由于實用性和成本的原因，在所有機場迅速加強手衛(wèi)生實踐和意識并不容易。

But the study also looked at the hypothetical effects of improving hand cleanliness at just the 10 most pivotal airports in the world for reducing infection transmissibility. Even if hand-washing was only increased at those 10 locations, disease spreading would decrease significantly, from 45 percent to 37 percent.

不過，這項研究還考察了在世界上10個最關鍵的機場改善手部清潔度以降低感染傳播率的假設效果。即使只在這10個地點增加洗手，疾病傳播也會顯著減少，從45%下降到37%。

The findings are reported in Risk Analysis.

研究結果發(fā)表在《風險分析》雜志上。