狗能从袜子里 “闻” 出人是否患有疟疾
Dogs could help detect malaria
They're our four-legged friends, but could they help fight one of our worst enemies?
狗是我们的四条腿朋友，但它们能帮助对抗我们最大的一个敌人吗？
Malaria infects more than two hundred million people every year.
每年有两亿多人感染疟疾。
But now dogs are on the scent.
而现在，狗嗅出了该病的蛛丝马迹。
Socks from children in the Gambia were sent to the Medical Detection Dogs charity here in Milton Keynes.
冈比亚儿童穿过的袜子被送至这家位于英国米尔顿凯恩斯的慈善机构 “医疗检测犬”。
It’s taken training, but these pooches get it right 70% of the time if the children have malaria.
虽然需要经受训练，但如果孩子们患有疟疾，这些狗狗判断正确的概率是70%。
But if the children were disease free, the dogs got it wrong 10% of the time.
但如果孩子们没有患病，这些狗判断错误的概率则是10%。
It's still early stages but the study shows dogs have potential.
虽然该研究仍处于早期阶段，但它表明狗有这方面的潜力。
The most important thing with this is that it is much faster than current, existing
最重要的是，这种方式比现有的快速诊断测试要快得多
rapid diagnostic tests which can take up to 20 minutes and actually require a fully trained professional to do.
测试需要二十分钟，而且还需要一位受过全面培训的专业人士来完成。
Whereas this - if we had the Medical Detection Dogs going round a community, it will allow the whole community to be surveyed in a very short space of time.
然而，如果我们带着医疗检测犬到社区里转一圈，就可以在很短的时间内查完整个社区的情况。
The hope is dogs could work at airports to sniff out passengers with malaria to stop the disease spreading.
人们希望狗能够在机场工作，嗅出感染疟疾的乘客，从而阻止疾病的传播。
But there's still a long way to go before dogs can join the fight.
但要让狗加入与疾病的斗争之前，还有很长的道路要走。
The researchers will need to improve the dogs’ accuracy
这些研究人员需要提高狗检测的准确率
test them on people rather than socks and investigate whether the animals can sniff out different strains of malaria.
让它们在人身上，而不是在袜子上测试，并研究这种动物能否闻出不同种类的疟疾。