What if we eliminated one of the world's oldest diseases? | Caroline Harper

翻译人员: Sabrina Gong 校对人员: Gabriella Hu

I'd like you to imagine, just for a moment,

我想要各位想象一下，

that your eyelashes grew inwards instead of outwards,

你的眼睫毛向内生长， 而不是向外生长，

so that every time you blinked,

以至于每次你眨眼的时候，

they would scrape the front of your eyeballs,

眼睫毛就会刮伤你的眼球，

damaging the corneas,

损伤你的角膜，

so that slowly and painfully, you went blind.

最终你慢慢地，痛苦地走向失明。

Well, that's what happens to a person who has trachoma.

这种情况就发生在 患了砂眼的人身上。

Now, this little boy here, Pamelo, from Zambia, he has trachoma.

这个来自赞比亚的小男孩 Pamelo就得了砂眼。

And if we don't do anything, he's going to go blind.

如果我们不采取任何 措施的话，他将会失明。

Trachoma is a curious disease.

砂眼是一种

It's a bacterial infection that's passed from person to person

通过患者的传染或苍蝇的接触而导致

and by flies.

细菌感染的怪病。

The repeated infection will scar your eyelids

重复感染会使眼皮留下疤痕，

so that they contract and they turn inside out.

导致眼皮收缩并外翻。

It particularly affects women,

这种病对女性的影响尤为明显，

because they have the contact with children.

因为她们和儿童有接触。

So what you'll often see in places like Ethiopia

所以在埃塞俄比亚这样的地方，

are girls who have tweezers like this around their necks,

你常常会看到脖子上 戴着像这样的镊子的女孩们，

and they use them to pluck out their eyelashes.

她们会用镊子拔掉自己睫毛。

But of course, that only gives them temporary respite,

但是当然了，这只是治标不治本，

because they just grow back more vicious than before.

因为长回来的眼睫毛 反而会造成更大的伤害。

There are around two million people in the world

世界上因砂眼而失明 或患视觉障碍的人群

who are blind or visually impaired because of trachoma.

约有200万人，

And we believe there may be as many as 200 million people

并且我们相信，有潜在风险的人群

who are at risk.

高达2亿人。

Now, it's a very old disease.

这是一种古老的疾病。

What you can see is a photo of a wall of a tomb in Northern Sudan.

你现在看到的是 北苏丹墓穴里壁画的照片。

A colleague and I were traveling in a very remote village,

我和一位同事在一个 非常偏远的村落旅行时，

and we asked an old man to take us down into a little tomb.

曾请求一位老人 带我们游览一小段墓穴。

Now, on the wall, we saw two eyes.

在这面墙上，我们看到一双眼睛。

One is crying,

一只眼在流泪，

and you can see there are tweezers next to it.

并且你可以看到旁边画有镊子。

Simon said to me, "My God, do you think that's trachoma?"

西蒙问我：“天呐， 你觉不觉得那是砂眼？”

So we sent this picture to the British Museum,

于是我们将这张照片 发送给了大英博物馆，

and they confirmed that, yes, this is trachoma.

然后他们证实了， 没错，这的确是砂眼。

So, thousands of years ago,

所以，数千年前，

the ancient Nubians were painting pictures of trachoma

古努比亚人就在他们洞穴的墙上，

刻画下了砂眼的症状。

on the walls of their tomb.

And the tragedy is

可悲的是，

that disease is still rampant in that area today.

这个疾病至今仍在那片地区肆虐着。

And the crazy thing is, we know how to stop it.

而讽刺的是，我们早就知道 如何终止该疾病的蔓延。

And what's great is that the trachoma community have all come together

庆幸的是，砂眼社群的 人们已经聚集在一起，

齐心协力的对抗这种疾病。

to pool their efforts.

We don't compete; we collaborate.

我们彼此没有竞争，只是单纯的合作。

I have to tell you, that's not always the case

我必须要告诉你们， 根据我在非政府组织中的经验，

in my experience in the NGO world.

这种情况并不常见。

We've created something

我们成立了一个叫

called the International Coalition for Trachoma Control.

“国际砂眼控制联盟”的组织，

And together, we've developed a strategy to fight it.

并且共同制定了 一个策略去对抗砂眼。

This strategy is called the SAFE strategy,

这个策略叫做 SAFE策略，

and it's been approved by the World Health Organization.

已经得到了世界卫生组织的认可。

The "S" stands for "surgery."

“S”代表手术。

It's very straightforward procedure

眼睑矫正

to turn the eyelids back the right way.

是一个非常简单的手术。

We train nurses to do it,

我们培训护士做这种手术，

and they use local anesthetics.

用局部麻醉，

And as you can see, you can do it in somebody's front porch, if need be.

可以看到，必要的时候 在门前的走廊就可以做。

Then "A" stands for "antibiotics."

“A”代表抗生素。

These are donated by Pfizer,

辉瑞捐赠了这些抗生素，

who also pay for those drugs to be transported to the port in-country.

并支付了运输到 这些国家港口的费用。

From there, they're taken to the villages,

这些抗生素将从那里被送到各个村落，

where hundreds of thousands of community volunteers

成千上万的社区义工

will distribute those drugs to the people.

会分发这些药物给患者。

Now, we train those volunteers,

我们负责培训那些义工，

and we also help the ministries with all that complex logistics.

也帮助有关部门解决复杂的物流问题。

And every one of those volunteers has a pole like this.

每一个义工都有一个像这样的杆子，

It's called a "dose pole."

我们叫它“剂量杆”。

This one's from Cameroon.

这只杆子来自喀麦隆。

And you can see it's marked different colors,

你可以看到这只杆子 被标记上了不同的颜色，

and you can tell how many pills you should give somebody,

根据人们的身高，可以知道

based on how tall they are.

需要给他们多少剂量的药物。

"F" stands for "face washing."

“F”代表面部清洁。

Now, we used to have trachoma in the UK and in the US.

在英国和美国曾经流行过砂眼症。

In fact, President Carter,

事实上，卡特总统

he talks about how trachoma was a real problem in Georgia

讲述过在他小的时候， 砂眼在乔治亚地区

是个多么严重的问题。

when he was a little boy.

And in the UK, the famous eye hospital, Moorfields,

而且在英国，这个非常有名的 眼科医院，摩菲医院，

最初是一个砂眼专科医院。

was originally a trachoma hospital.

What we do is teach kids like this how important it is to wash their faces.

我们教这样的孩子洗脸的重要性。

And finally, "E" stands for "environment,"

最后，“E”代表环境。

我们帮助部落建造公共厕所，

where we help the communities build latrines,

and we teach them to separate their animals from their living quarters

并且教他们要把动物 从他们的住所分离开，

in order to reduce the fly population.

从而减少苍蝇的数量。

So we know how to tackle the disease.

所以，我们知道 如何去对付这个疾病，

But we need to know where it is.

但是，我们需要知道 这个疾病都分布在哪儿。

And we do,

其实我们是知道的，

because a few years ago, Sightsavers led an incredible program

因为在数年前，护眼使者们 发起过一项不可思议的项目，

called the Global Trachoma Mapping Project.

叫做“全球砂眼测绘项目”。

It took us three years,

虽然只花了三年的时间，

but we went through 29 countries,

但我们已经走过了29个国家，

and we taught local health workers to go district by district,

教当地的医疗工作者挨家挨户寻访，

and they examined the eyelids of over two and a half million people.

检查了超过250万人的眼睑，

And they used Android phones in order to download the data.

并且用安卓手机下载数据。

And from that, we were able to build a map

由此，我们可以绘制一个

that showed us where the disease was.

疾病的分布图。

Now, this is a very high-level map

这是一个显示哪些国家

that shows you which countries had a problem with trachoma.

存在砂眼问题的非常准确的地图。

And you may ask me, "Well, does this strategy actually work?"

也许你们会问我， “这个策略真的有用吗？”

Yes, it does.

是的，有用。

This map shows you the progress that we've made to date.

这个地图显示了 至今为止我们的进度。

The green countries believe they've already eliminated trachoma,

绿色的国家相信 他们已经消灭了砂眼症，

and they have either been through or are in the process of

他们的进展已经或者正在

having that validated by the WHO.

被世界卫生组织证实。

Countries in yellow have the money they need,

黄色的国家拥有所需资金，

they have the resources to eliminate trachoma.

也有资源去消灭砂眼症。

And some of them are really nearly there.

这其中的一些国家 已经非常接近这个目标了。

But the red countries, they don't have enough funding.

但是红色的国家没有足够资金，

They cannot eliminate trachoma unless they get more.

除非他们有更多钱， 否则无法消灭砂眼。

And we're quite concerned, though, that the progress to date may stall.

我们非常担心进度会被拖延。

So when we were talking to the Audacious ideas guys,

所以，当我们和喜欢提出 大胆设想的人讨论时，

we asked ourselves:

我们也会自问：

If we really, really pushed ourselves over the next four or five years

在之后的四或五年， 如果我们非常非常努力，

and we had the money,

并且有足够的钱，

what do we think we could achieve?

我们会实现什么样的成就？

Well, we believe that we can eliminate trachoma

我们相信，我们可以消灭

in 12 African countries

12个非洲国家的砂眼症，

and across the Americas

和美洲的砂眼症，

and all across the Pacific.

以及全太平洋地区的砂眼症。

And we can make significant progress

我们可以在两个砂眼症最严重的国家，

in two countries which have the highest burden of the disease,

埃塞俄比亚和尼日利亚

取得显著的进展。

which is Ethiopia and Nigeria.

And in doing all of that,

与此同时，

we can leverage more than two billion dollars' worth of donated drugs.

我们可以有效利用超过 二十亿美元的捐赠药品。

(Applause)

（鼓掌）

Now, this map here shows you the impact that we'll have --

这张地图显示了 我们将会产生的影响 ——

look how many countries are going green.

有这么多国家将要变成绿色。

And there, you can see progress in Ethiopia and Nigeria.

你们也可以看到埃塞俄比亚 和尼日利亚的进度。

Now, yes, there are some countries that are still red.

是的，有一些国家仍是红色。

These are mainly countries which are in conflict --

主要是那些有战争冲突的国家，

places like Yemen, South Sudan -- where it's very difficult to work.

比如也门，南苏丹—— 在这些地区难于展开工作。

So, we have the team, the strategy and the map.

所以，我们有团队，策略和地图。

And we also have the relationships with the governments

我们与政府也建立了合作关系，

so that we can make sure that our program is coordinated

以确保我们的项目 和其他的疾病控制项目

with other disease-control programs,

可以相互协调，

so that we can be efficient.

从而提高效率。

Wouldn't it be amazing if we could do this?

这听起来是不是很棒？

We'd have trachoma on the run.

我们可以让砂眼疲于奔命，

We would be on the home straight

我们可以以迅雷之势

to eliminate this disease from the whole world.

让这个疾病在世界范围内彻底消失。

But before I finish, I just want to share with you

但是在演讲结束之前， 我想要与你们分享，

some words from the founder of Sightsavers,

“护眼使者”创始人的一些话，

a guy called Sir John Wilson.

他叫 约翰 · 威尔逊爵士。

Now, he was blinded at the age of 12.

他在12岁的时候失明了。

And he said,

他说过，

"People don't go blind by the million.

“失明不会一夜之间 发生在成千上万的人身上，

They go blind one by one."

而是会互相传染。”

And in the excitement of being able to say

如果我们能说我们已经 消灭了一个国家的砂眼症，

we've got rid of trachoma for the whole country,

那自然让人无比兴奋。

let's not forget that, actually, this is a devastating disease

但不要忘记，这其实 是一个毁灭性的疾病，

that destroys the lives of individual people.

它摧毁的是许多个体的生活，

People like Twiba.

比如像Twiba这样的人。

Now, I met Twiba last year in Tanzania.

我于去年在坦桑尼亚遇到Twiba。

She had had trachoma for as long as she could remember.

她自从记事起就得了砂眼，

And a couple of months before I met her, she'd had the operation.

在我见到她的几个月前， 她已经做了手术。

It's no exaggeration to say

不夸张地说，

that this had totally transformed her life.

这完全转变了她的人生。

We'd saved the sight that she had left, and she was free of pain.

我们拯救了她剩余的视力， 而且帮助她摆脱了疼痛。

She could sleep.

她可以正常睡觉，

She could work, she could socialize.

工作，以及社交。

And she said to me,

她对我说，

"I have my life back."

“我的人生回来了。”

And it was impossible not to be moved by her story.

她的故事很难不让人动容。

But there are so many Twibas.

但是有太多像Twiba一样的人了。

I want to find all the Twibas,

我想要找到所有像Twiba一样的人，

and I don't want anyone to go blind in agony anymore.

我不希望任何人再在痛苦中失明。

Now, you know, there are so many intractable problems in this world.

众所周知，这个世界上 有太多棘手的问题，

But this is not one of them.

但砂眼症并不是其中之一。

This is something that we can solve.

这是我们可以解决的问题。

And we can ensure

我们可以确保

that kids like this can grow up free from the fear of trachoma.

这些孩子们不会在砂眼的恐惧中成长。

So, for the sake of kids like this,

所以为了孩子们，

and for the sake of people like Twiba,

为了像Twiba一样的人们，

let's get rid of trachoma.

让我们消灭砂眼。

Do you think we can?

你们觉得我们能做到吗？

Well, yeah, if we really, really want to.

如果我们对此坚定不移——

Yes, we can.

是的，我们做得到。

So thank you.

谢谢。

(Applause)

（鼓掌）