西班牙埃博拉患者宠物狗被安乐死

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.

马德里——周三，一名感染埃博拉病毒的护士的狗被实施了安乐死，尽管抗议者和动物权益活动人士包围了这名护士及其丈夫在马德里的住所。这条狗名叫埃克斯卡利伯(Excalibur)。网上一封呼吁放这条狗一条生路的请愿书，目前已获得了数以万计的签名。

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

群情激奋之时，有人质疑狗是否会感染以及传播这种疾病。

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.

美国疾病控制与预防中心（Centers for Disease Control and Prevention，简称CDC）发言人托马斯·斯金纳(Thomas Skinner)周三表示，研究表明，狗能对埃博拉病毒产生免疫反应，这意味着它们可能也会受到感染。但是他说，目前尚无狗或猫出现埃博拉病症或者把这种疾病传播给其他动物或人类的报告。

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.

埃克斯卡利伯是一条12岁的搜救犬，马德里地区政府官员哈维尔·罗德里格斯(Javier Rodríguez)向记者证实了它的死亡，它的尸体将被火化。

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.

这名护士的丈夫曾公开请求马德里官员改变主意，不要对埃克斯卡利伯实施安乐死。他告诉西班牙报纸《世界报》(El Mundo)，没有迹象表明埃克斯卡利伯感染了埃博拉病毒。这名护士被认定为玛丽亚·特雷莎·罗梅罗·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.

这条狗的命运引起了网民的愤怒。共有35万人在请愿书上签名，希望能挽救它的生命。相比之下，大约15万人在一封请愿书上签名，敦促食品与药品管理局（Food and Drug Administration，简称FDA）加快对埃博拉疫苗和治疗方案的研究。

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

Twitter上的反应也很强烈，人们用英语和西班牙语发表请愿，要求拯救埃克斯卡利伯的生命。

#saveexcaliber SAVE THE R HAS ANTINE THE DOG MURDER HIM

#saveexcaliber 救救这狗……主人感染了埃博拉……把狗也给隔离了……不要杀害他

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

随后，在埃克斯卡利伯被实施安乐死后，有推文开始使用 #RIPExcalibur 的标签。

#RIPExcalibur hating this world so damn much today.

#RIPExcalibur 今天无比厌恶这个世界。

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

有人则提出人们把更多的注意力放在了狗上，而不是埃博拉病毒的人类受害者。

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，共有将近4000人在目前的埃博拉疫情中丧生，全球各地的卫生官员认为，将来还会有数千人会受感染。这名西班牙护士成了西非以外地区受感染的第一人。美国的唯一确诊案例是一名利比里亚籍男子，他曾从利比里亚去往达拉斯，并于周三在那里的一家医院死亡。有关部门把三名受感染的美国救援工作者从西非转移到了美国医院，他们在那里得到了很好的治疗，一名在利比里亚受感染的NBC自由摄影记者被转移到了内布拉斯加州的一家医院，目前正在那里接受治疗。

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.

斯金纳称，疾病预防和控制中心正在建议家中有狗或猫的埃博拉患者“评估动物的接触风险”，也就是说他们应该评估动物摄入患者的血液等体液，以及呕吐物和排泄物的可能性有多大。如果动物已经接触了病毒，应将其观察21天。21天是埃博拉病毒的潜伏期。斯金纳称，CDC正在与美国兽医协会(American Veterinary Medical Association)合作，研究这个问题，并制定针对美国宠物的指导意见。

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年期间爆发后，研究人员在2005年对加蓬的狗进行的一项研究中发现，狗可能会感染该病毒，但它们未表现出症状。

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.

发表在CDC期刊《新生感染性疾病》(Emerging Infectious Diseases)上的该研究，对位于那一轮埃博拉爆发的中心的两个村子，以及出现了一些感染埃博拉病例的一座城市、偏远村庄和法国一个控制组的狗进行了测试。那两个村子共有159条狗接受了测试，其中40条狗的血液中含有埃博拉抗原。这一比例，明显高于出现了人感染埃博拉病例的那座城市的狗，是距病毒爆发地几百英里的狗的三倍多，同时也远高于法国的狗。法国有102条狗接受了测试，仅2条狗体内发现了埃博拉抗原。

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.

研究人员称，不能排除宠物狗感染病毒并将其传播给人类这个可能性。他们指出，和非洲许多地区一样，加蓬的宠物狗接触野生动物的可能性更大，因为非洲的狗经常觅食，吃小动物和被猎人打死的野生动物的器官。野生动物是埃博拉感染的源头，其中部分野生动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.

“我们观察到，一些狗吃了感染了埃博拉病毒的动物的新鲜遗骸——这些动物尸体被带回了那些村子——其他一些狗舔过感染了埃博拉病毒的患者的呕吐物，”这些研究人员通报称。

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.

不同于野生动物，研究中的那些狗没有一条表现出了症状。该研究称，在大猩猩和黑猩猩身上，埃博拉感染通常是致命的。但研究称，接触过埃博拉的狗可能是潜在的人类感染源头，因为人可能会通过“狗的舔、咬或给其梳毛刷洗”，接触狗的尿液、排泄物或唾液中的病毒颗粒。

"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."

“考虑到人类与家里的狗的接触频率，”研究称，“必须将犬类埃博拉感染视作人类感染，以及病毒扩散的一种潜在风险因素。”