VOA Report: Weather Predicts Diseases

Xem bản tin dưới đây và luyện đọc lại nhé. Các bạn luyện đọc lại theo Transcript này nhé. From VOA Learning English, this is the Health Report. Meningitis is spreading across West Africa. The brain disease is a threat every year across 21 African countries. Now, ...



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From VOA Learning English, this is the Health Report.

Meningitis is spreading across West Africa. The brain disease is a threat every year across 21 African countries. Now, scientists have found they can predict and prepare for this and other diseases by using information from satellites. Every year, dust storms blow across the Sahel area of Africa, and meningitis crosses the area after the storms. Tens of thousands of people there get the disease each year. About 10 percent of them die from the disease. Another 10 to 20 percent suffer permanent brain or nerve damage.

Carlos Perez Garcia-Pando is an atmospheric scientist with the American space agency NASA. Mr. Garcia-Pando says scientists do not know why meningitis follows the seasonal dust storms. But he and his team watched the dust storms from the satellites. Then, by also using other pieces of information, the researchers found they could predict how bad the next meningitis season would be.
Nita Bharti is with Penn State University. She says predicts the spread of measles by watching city lights grow brighter. The disease measles spreads in crowds. In Niger’s capital, Niamey, the population grows in the dry season as farmers arrive, seeking work. Ms. Bharti and her team found they could predict how measles would spread through Niamey by watching parts of the city light up on satellite pictures from the brightness of their lights and cooking fires.

Rita Colwell works for the University of Maryland. Her group found it could predict cases of the deadly disease cholera in Bangladesh, by using satellite information about conditions in the Bay of Bengal.
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