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  3. [img]2018m11s/ct_eyyjsbz2017c_eyyjsbreada_0027_201809[/img] Getting a cold or

[img]2018m11s/ct_eyyjsbz2017c_eyyjsbreada_0027_201809[/img] Getting a cold or

游客2024-08-10  26
问题
   Getting a cold or catching the flu is a common complaint for people every year. In fact, people usually catch between two and five colds each year. No one enjoys the accompanying symptoms: the sore throat, running nose, constant sneezing and headaches. Unsurprisingly, cold medication has become a big business. People spend billions of dollars to combat this recurring problem. We see the number and variety of over-the-counter medicines each time we enter a pharmacy. Is a cure for the common cold possible? The answer seems to be both yes and no.
   First of all, the common cold itself is not a single disease. Any of two hundred different viruses could be responsible for the symptoms of a cold. Developing a vaccine for the common cold would literally mean having to develop hundreds of vaccines.
   Additionally, some cold viruses have the ability to change their molecular appearance. Thus, even though our body may become immune to a certain cold virus this winter, by next winter our antibodies will probably not recognize it.
   However, one family of viruses, the rhinoviruses, seems to account for almost 40% of all colds. Therefore, scientists have been focusing their research on this family of virus es in the hopes that treatments targeting rhinoviruses will result in a drastic decrease in the number of colds people get. In the late 1990s, researches experienced some initial success. Biologists developed a treatment, an anti-viral molecule called BIRR4, which prevented the binding of the virus to cells in the nose. This binding is an essential first step to start a viral infection and, were it preventable, many of the infectiors would be bypassed. For the next few years, the Pharmaceutical giant Boehringer tried to make this treatment commercially viable. Unfortunately, they found to their dismay that this treatment only worked just prior to getting a cold or in the first stages of infection when most people do not yet realize anything is wrong. As a possible treatment for a cold, it was severely limited and so in 2000, Boehringe dropped the BIRR4 project.
   Another difficulty in finding a cure for the common cold is that the cold virus does not actually cause our cold symptoms. Indeed, by the time we start to show cold symptoms, the viral infection is almost over. Most infections result in no symptoms at all. The symptoms that we get from a cold are, in reality, produced by our body’s immune response, not by the virus itself. Thus, some scientists are now suggesting targeting the body’s immune responses rather than the virus itself, as we do when we treat allergies. One medical researcher suggests that in order to find a cure for colds we must weaken our immune system’s response. Through a cocktail of certain drugs-interferon, ibupro-fen and chlorpheniramine-cold sufferers would be able to decrease the anti-inflammatory part of the immune response and get rid of their symptoms, while still allowing their body to fight off the remaining viral infection. Ibuprofen and chlorpheniramine are both inexpensive and available over the counter. Unfortunately, however, a single dose of interferon is about $ 200 and is as yet unavailable in large over-the-counter quantities.
   Though at times it seemed that a cure was already tantalizingly close, this process of infection and our body’s response to it is clearly more complicated than previously guessed. Undoubtedly, the search for a cure for the common cold will continue. What form this eventual cure will take, though, is anyone’s guess.
Questions 56 to 60
Complete the table using no more than three words for each blank.
[br]
选项
答案 a single disease
解析 (根据后半句的“any of two hundred different viruses”，可知答案在第二段。因此该空应填入a single disease。)
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