本文音频及原文摘自杂志The Economist 2016年第39期，Science and Technology版块。

Resistance to antibiotics

A neglected health problem is debated by the UN

Sep 24th 2016

All around the world, drug-resistant infections[耐药性/抗药性感染] are on the rise. They now kill more than 700,000 people a year. In 2014 nearly 60% of samples of Escherichia coli[大肠埃希氏菌;大肠杆菌], a common gut bacterium[肠道细菌], collected from patients in hospital were strains[菌株,菌系] that could not be treated with penicillins[1]. About 25% were resistant to one or both of two other commonly used sorts of antibiotics[抗生素;抗菌素].

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The main reason for this resistance is overuse of antibiotics[抗生素滥用] by people, both on themselves and on their animals. Between 2000 and 2014, the number of standard doses[] of antibiotics used increased by 50%. By 2050 drug-resistant infections could cost between 1.1% and 3.8% of global GDP, according to a report published on September 19th by the World Bank.

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Two days later, the United Nations held a meeting of heads of state to mull the matter over[2]—only the fourth occasion that the General Assembly has debated a health problem. The assembly did not adopt any targets to curb[抑制;制止] the use of antibiotics, as some scientists have urged it to do. But its members did promise to draw up and pay for national plans to tackle the issue. There is no time to waste: on current trends, drug-resistant bugs could kill as many as 10m a year by 2050.

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[1]penicillin：a type of antibiotic (= a medicine that kills bacteria) 盘尼西林，青霉素

[2]mull sth over：to think carefully about something for a long time 仔细思考，反复考虑

I need a few days to mull things over before I decide if I'm taking the job.

在决定是否做这份工作前，我需要几天时间仔细考虑。

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以上言论不代表本人立场。

原文摘自The economist，仅外语学习之用。

其中生词解释来源于Cambridge Dictionaries

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