新型冠状病毒疫苗几时能研究（天花疫苗对新型冠状病毒）

Civil War Vaccine May Have Lessons for COVID-19

This is Scientific American's 60-second Science, I'm Susanne Bard.

这里是科学美国人——60秒科学系列，我是苏珊娜·巴德。

Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1980. So generations of people have never had to experience the devastation the disease once brought. “Itcould cause, sometimes, even in excess of 30 percent mortality. It caused these very painful blisters that covered the entire body." McMaster University's Anla Duggan. Shestudies how genomes evolve.

1980年，天花在世界范围内被根除。所以后代人对这种疾病带来的破坏没有体会。"天花的致死率通常高达30%已上。患者会浑身疼痛，长满水泡。"麦克马斯特大学研究基因进化的Ana Duggan说。

Thefirst vaccine for smallpox was developed in 1796. It worked by infecting people with pus from pox lesions causedby similar but far less pernicious conditions,like cowpox. At the time, no one knew that viruses caused these diseases.

1976年，世界上第一支天花疫苗诞生。通过让患者感染与天花类似但不及天花严重的牛痘脓液，来达到免疫的目的。当时，没有人知道病毒会导致这些疾病。

“We didn't have microscopes that were strong enough to see them.So we had physicians that were performing this procedure that they knew was beneficial. But they didn’t understand why it worked. They just knew that it worked.”

“我们没有足够强大的显微镜来观察它们。所以医生在做这个手术时只知道这是有益的。但不明白它的工作原理。他们只知道它有效。”

Smallpox vaccination became common in the 19th century.During the American Civil War, all new soldiers on both sides were required tobe vaccinated. “You had alarge number of individuals who were congregated ina single place, such as an army barracks,where a disease can spread very easily.”

天花疫苗接种在19世纪得到普通推广。美国内战期间，内战双方所有新兵都必须接种疫苗。“人群聚集的地方，如军营，病毒非常容易传播。

Back then, there were no mass-produced vaccines. Instead physicians often used fluids and pox scabs collected from previously vaccinated people and shared these materials with each other. They were kept in custom-made vaccination kits—a leather case containing a tin box, glass slides and a lancet for scratching the skin to introduce the vaccine into the body.

当时疫苗还没有大规模生产。医生们会收集共享已接种疫苗患者的脓液和痘痂。它们被保存在专用的疫苗试剂盒里——是一个特质的皮箱，里面有一个铁盒，玻璃载玻片和一把用于接种疫苗的柳叶刀。

Some of these kits were later donated to the Mütter Museum of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Ana Duggan’s team recovered fragments of DNA from the kits, piecing together the viral genomes that were in those old vaccines.“We were interested in understanding what virus was being used to protect against smallpox.”

这些试剂盒有一部分捐赠给了费城医学院的马特博物馆。Ana Duggan的团队从试剂盒中提取DNA碎片，旧疫苗中的病毒基因组得以重建。“我们想弄清楚用来预防天花病毒。”

The researchers discovered that the vaccines were all closely related strainsof vaccinia, part of what’s called the orthopox group of viruses—which also includes both cowpox and smallpox. But the vaccinia virusis only distantly related to the variola virus that causes smallpox.

研究人员发现，这些疫苗菌株都与与牛痘密切相关，属于正痘病毒属，正痘病毒属包括牛痘和天花。

病毒和天花病毒是远亲关系

“However, it’s still areally effective vaccine. So we just had to have a virus that’s closeenough that induces that immune response that is then protective against future infection.Vaccinia virus becomes the predominant strain of virus that’s used for smallpox vaccination in the 20th century.”

“然而，它仍然是一种真正有效的疫苗。所以我们只需要有一种足够接近的病毒来引起免疫反应从而预防未来的感染。牛痘病毒是20世纪用于天花疫苗接种的主要病毒株。”

The study is in the journal Genome Biology. [AnaT. Duggan et al.,The origins and genomic diversity of American Civil War Era smallpox vaccine strains]

这项研究发表在《基因组生物学》杂志上。文章名称《美国内战时期天花疫苗株的起组多样性》，Ana T.gan等。

As scientists scramble to develop vaccines for COVID-19, there are parallels to smallpox. For example, they’re looking into whether less virulent relatives of coronavirus could protect against COVID-19 the way vaccinia protects against smallpox.

在科学家们争相研制COVID-19疫苗的过程中，出现了与天花类似的情况。例如，他们正在研究与冠状病毒同属、毒性较弱的病毒是否能像牛痘预防天花那样预防COVID-19。

“We've recently celebrated the 40th anniversary of the eradication of smallpox. And we are now in another global battle for eradication.”

“我们最近举办了天花根除40周年庆祝活动。然而目前我们正处在另一场全球消灭病毒的战役中。”

原文地址：https://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode/civil-war-vaccine-may-have-lessons-for-covid-19/

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