While all of us are focused on the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s easy to forget about the world’s longest-running pandemic—cholera. Over the last 200 years the deadly diarrheal disease, which thrives in areas without safe water and sanitation, has killed millions of people. The current cholera pandemic—the world’s seventh—started in 1961, spreading from South Asia to Africa and the Americas. Every year, cholera outbreaks around the globe affect about 4 million people and lead to as many as 130,000 deaths.
当我们所有人都在关注新冠肺炎疫情时，我们容易忘记世界上最漫长的大流行——霍乱。在过去200年里，这种在缺乏安全饮用水和卫生设施的地区滋生泛滥的致命腹泻病，已经令数百万人失去生命。最近的一次霍乱大流行——也是全球第七次——始于1961年，从南亚蔓延到非洲和美洲。每年，全球各地的霍乱疫情让约400万人受到影响，并且造成多达13万的死亡。
An affordable, effective, and safe oral cholera vaccine, however, is proving to be a game changer in the fight against this often-forgotten disease. Thanks in large part to recent cholera vaccination campaigns, the number of cholera cases decreased globally by 60 percent in 2018, according to the World Health Organization. Though 2019 saw an increase in cases, the total number of cholera deaths fell by 36 percent.然而，一种价格可负担、有效且安全的口服霍乱疫苗，正被证明可以改变抗击这种常被遗忘疾病的进程。根据世界卫生组织的数据，2018年全球霍乱病例数减少了60%，这很大程度上得益于最近的霍乱疫苗接种运动。虽然2019年的病例数有所增加，但霍乱的死亡总数下降了36%。
This breakthrough has been the life’s work of Dr. Firdausi Qadri, an immunologist and infectious disease researcher in Bangladesh. For the last 25 years, Dr. Qadri has been one of the few people advocating for an affordable vaccine to protect entire communities from cholera epidemics.费道希·卡德里医生是孟加拉国的一位免疫学家和传染病研究员，她毕生的工作就是为了实现这一突破。在过去25年，卡德里医生一直是一小群倡导者之一，他们提倡使用一款价格可负担的疫苗来保护整个社区免受霍乱大流行的影响。
While there have been several cholera vaccines since the late 19th century, they were expensive and in short supply. In the early 2000s, the main cholera vaccine available was largely used by travelers from rich countries and was not practical for use in vaccination campaigns of poor communities at risk of the disease.虽然自19世纪末以来已有好几种霍乱疫苗，但它们价格不菲且供不应求。在2000年代初，市面上主要的霍乱疫苗大多供富裕国家的旅行者使用，并不适于在受霍乱威胁的贫困社区里进行接种运动。
In 2011, Dr. Qadri and her team at the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease and Research, Bangladesh (icddr,b) led a feasibility study on a newer, more affordable oral cholera vaccine, Shanchol. The study, which was done in partnership with our foundation, showed that the inexpensive vaccine could be an effective tool in stopping the spread of cholera in poor, urban environments, giving people more than 50 percent protection against the disease.2011年，卡德里医生和她在孟加拉国腹泻病国际研究中心的团队，领导了一项可行性研究，评估一款更新、更便宜的口服霍乱疫苗：Shanchol。此项与我们基金会合作完成的研究表明，这种廉价的疫苗可能成为一种有效的工具，阻止霍乱在贫穷的城市环境中传播，给予人们超过50%的疾病保护。
Dr. Qadri’s study—the largest trial of its kind—helped lead to a complete change in thinking about how the world could tackle the challenge of cholera. “You can have very good water, sanitation, education, good homes and people won’t have cholera. But until that happens, you need to stop the misery. You need to control the disease,” Dr. Qadri said. “And the vaccine is a one-stop solution.”卡德里医生的研究是同类研究中规模最大的，它帮助彻底改变了世界可以如何应对霍乱挑战的思路。“你可以有非常好的饮用水、卫生设施、教育、好的居所，那时人们就不会感染霍乱。但在这发生之前，你需要阻止苦难。你需要控制这种疾病。”卡德里医生说，“疫苗是个一站式解决方案。”
To be sure, access to clean water and sanitation are still critically important for controlling cholera in the long-term. During the 19th century, as cholera spread around the world from its original reservoir in India, outbreaks were eventually brought under control in America and Europe through huge investments in water and sewer systems. And work continues to improve access to clean water and sanitation in low-income countries. But infrastructure improvements can be expensive and take time to build and maintain. Cholera vaccination campaigns provide an important tool to save lives immediately and buy time for communities to pursue longer-term water and sanitation solutions.毋庸置疑，能够获得清洁水源和卫生设施对于长期控制霍乱仍然至关重要。在19世纪，随着霍乱从最早在印度的宿主蔓延至全世界，通过对供水和下水道系统的巨额投资，疫情最终在美洲和欧洲得到了控制。在低收入国家，提升清洁水源和卫生设施获得途径的工作仍在继续。但基础设施的改善可能很昂贵，并且需要时间来建设和维护。霍乱疫苗接种运动提供了一个重要的工具，可以立刻开始挽救生命，并为社区争取时间来寻求从长期上解决水源和环境卫生问题的方案。
In 2013, the WHO helped create an oral cholera vaccine stockpile, to contain and prevent outbreaks. Since then, more than 60 million doses have been shipped worldwide. In addition to Shanchol, a second affordable cholera vaccine, Euvichol, is now available, helping to increase vaccine supplies. Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, is supporting countries to use the cholera vaccine to target cholera “hotspots”—areas at highest risk—to prevent outbreaks before they happen.2013年，世卫组织帮助建立了一个口服霍乱疫苗储备，目的是控制和预防霍乱的暴发。自那时起，已有6000多万剂疫苗被运送到世界各地。除了Shanchol，第二种价格可负担的霍乱疫苗Euvichol也已上市，有助于增加疫苗供应。全球疫苗免疫联盟正在支持国家将疫苗应用于霍乱的“热点地区”（高风险地区），从而做到防患于未然。
This preventive approach will be even more critical in the years ahead because climate change, urbanization, and population growth create ideal conditions for the spread of cholera. Humanitarian crises are also a breeding ground for the disease. The civil war in Yemen, for example, has led to the largest and fastest-spreading cholera outbreak in modern history, infecting millions and killing more than 3,000 people since 2016.由于气候变化、城市化和人口增长为霍乱的传播创造了理想的条件，这种预防方式在今后几年将变得更加重要。人道主义危机也是霍乱滋生的温床。例如，也门的内战导致了近代史上规模最大、传播最快的霍乱疫情，自2016年以来造成数百万人感染、3000多人死亡。
Still, progress is being made. In Bangladesh, the arrival in 2017 of nearly one million Rohingya refugees from Myanmar into overcrowded camps raised concerns about a cholera epidemic. Working with the government, Dr. Qadri led a vaccination program that has helped prevent an outbreak.尽管如此，我们仍在取得进展。在孟加拉国，近100万名来自缅甸的罗兴亚难民于2017年涌入拥挤不堪的营地，这引起了人们对霍乱流行的担忧。卡德里医生与政府合作，领导了一项疫苗接种计划，帮助防止了疫情的暴发。
“If this vaccination was not carried out, there would be chaotic conditions,” Dr. Qadri said. “We were able to prevent a major, major epidemic and deaths.”“如果不进行这一接种计划，那里将会出现混乱的情况。”卡德里医生说道，“我们得以防止了一场非常重大的疫情及由此造成的死亡。”
Successes like this have helped fuel new optimism in the fight against cholera. The Global Task Force on Cholera Control, hosted by the World Health Organization, is a partnership of more than 50 institutions all working together to end cholera. The task force’s strategy aims to reduce cholera deaths by 90 percent by 2030, and eliminate cholera in 20 countries, targeting areas where the disease is endemic and shifting from outbreak response to outbreak prevention.像这样的成功故事，为与霍乱的斗争注入了新的乐观情绪。由世卫组织主持的全球霍乱控制工作小组，是一个由50多个共同致力于消除霍乱的机构组成的合作组织，其战略目标是在2030年前将霍乱死亡人数减少90%，并在20个国家消除霍乱，方式是锁定那些霍乱处于地方性流行状态的地区，将那里的模式从应对疫情转变成预防疫情。
Thanks to the pioneering work of Dr. Qadri, the world is making progress toward this goal. And maybe someday cholera will be a disease that can truly be forgotten.得益于卡德里医生开拓性的工作，世界正在朝着这个目标迈进。也许有一天，霍乱将成为一种可以真正被遗忘的疾病。