【精英翻譯】的部落格

The Secret of How Bats Keep Viruses at Bay

蝙蝠百毒不侵的祕密

精英翻譯社轉自https://paper.udn.com/udnpaper/POH0058/354884/web/

You may have heard that bats are to blame for many disease outbreaks in recent years, including COVID-19 and SARS. But how exactly does a disease spread from bat to human? And with so many diseases coming from bats, you would think that bats would be sick all the time. It turns out this isn’t the case, and it’s likely because of the way that bats’ immune systems work.

你可能聽說過蝙蝠是最近幾年許多疾病爆發的罪魁禍首，包括嚴重特殊傳染性肺炎（COVID-19，簡稱「新冠肺炎」）和嚴重急性呼吸道症候群（SARS）。但疾病究竟是如何從蝙蝠傳染給人類的呢？而有那麼多源自蝙蝠的疾病，你可能會認為蝙蝠一直都在生病。結果並非如此，這很可能是因為蝙蝠免疫系統的運作方式。

Bats have very active immune systems to protect their cells from viruses. When a bat’s body detects a virus, a protein is released that sends a signal to the bat’s cells to keep the virus out. In response, viruses reproduce very quickly to try to get into the cells before this immune reaction triggers. Although the bats don’t get sick, these rapidly multiplying viruses can jump to animals with slower immune systems and can quickly cause serious infections.

蝙蝠有非常活躍的免疫系統來保護細胞免受病毒侵襲。蝙蝠身體偵測到病毒時，會釋放一種蛋白質向細胞發出信號以阻止病毒入侵。病毒會快速繁殖來回應，以設法在免疫反應觸發前進入細胞。雖然蝙蝠不會生病，但這些迅速繁殖的病毒會跳到免疫系統較慢的動物身上，並且可能迅速引發嚴重的傳染病。

At the same time, bats are great disease carriers. Bats live in large, crowded colonies—a perfect setting for viruses to spread. In addition, the average bat lives for around 30 years, which is a long time that an infected bat can spread the disease around its environment.

然而，蝙蝠是強大的疾病帶原者。蝙蝠大量擁擠地成群生活——這是病毒傳播的理想環境。此外，蝙蝠平均壽命約三十年，這是一段很長的時間，得以讓一隻受感染的蝙蝠將疾病傳播到環境中。