 | | Soldiers jog every day to keep their body fit in their tour of duty but have to endure the dust around the base |
Even to a physician like U.S. Army Capt. D.J. Doyle, the list of diseases in Afghanistan is frightening: typhoid fever, dengue fever, polio, cholera, leishmaniasis, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever. And then there's the dust. "I go running every day. The first time I saw the dust in the air, I thought 'Oh my God, I'm going to get so sick,'" said Doyle, 38, acting surgeon for the 82nd Airborne Division in Afghanistan. "But it just hasn't happened." The threat of disease and ailments hangs over any military force entering a foreign environment. In a country like Afghanistan, where sanitation and Western hygiene standards are virtually nonexistent and soldiers interact with the populace regularly, the prospect is even more unnerving. "For a U.S.-trained physician and soldier, the idea of going to a place where something like hemorrhagic fever is endemic scares the hell out of me," Doyle said. U.S. medical planners' fears of illness were based on past experience. In Vietnam, malaria sapped many troops' strength. Concerns were also stoked by the experience of the Soviet army during its war and occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. An estimated two-thirds of all Soviet troops who fought in Afghanistan were hospitalized with some disease or illness. Hepatitis A, typhoid fever, malaria, dysentery and even plague were the primary diseases that afflicted the Soviets. "It's not unrealistic to say the Soviets lost the war here because of disease non-battle injuries," Doyle said. For U.S. military troops, disease non-battle injury rates have run at about 1 percent since U.S operations began in Afghanistan last November. Most problems have been respiratory, which is attributed to the high altitudes and the dusty environment. Because many diseases in Afghanistan are also water- or food-borne, efforts also focus on basic hygiene. Combat troops out in the field are given bottles of anti-bacterial hand lotion and warned to stay away from locally-grown produce. But all these things are not enough. "The bottom line is that war is not a healthy thing." Doyle said. (Agencies) | 傷寒病、登革熱、小兒麻痹癥、霍亂、黑熱病、克里米亞-剛果出血熱…… 連美軍上尉軍醫(yī)D.J都勒對(duì)阿富汗境內(nèi)的種種疾病都感到心驚膽戰(zhàn)。 除此以外，還有更大的隱患--塵土。 38歲的都勒是美軍駐阿第82空降師的代理外科醫(yī)生。他說(shuō)："我每天都要跑步鍛煉身體。當(dāng)我第一次看到空氣中的大量塵土?xí)r就想，上帝啊，我會(huì)得病的。還好現(xiàn)在我還沒(méi)有病倒。" 對(duì)于任何一個(gè)進(jìn)入別國(guó)境內(nèi)作戰(zhàn)的軍隊(duì)來(lái)說(shuō)，疾病隨時(shí)都有可能降臨。而像在阿富汗這樣一個(gè)國(guó)家，衛(wèi)生設(shè)施或西方衛(wèi)生標(biāo)準(zhǔn)根本不存在，士兵還要跟當(dāng)?shù)仄矫耦l繁接觸，沾染傳染疾病的可能性就更大了。  | | 阿富汗戰(zhàn)場(chǎng)上的美國(guó)大兵在吃空投的快餐 |
都勒說(shuō)："盡管身為一名訓(xùn)練有素的美國(guó)軍醫(yī)，只要想到我們要去的地方蔓延著出血熱等疾病，我還是害怕得夠嗆。"
美國(guó)醫(yī)療規(guī)劃者們對(duì)疾病的擔(dān)心是有據(jù)可循的。在越戰(zhàn)期間，瘧疾拖垮了許多士兵。而在二十世紀(jì)八十年代蘇聯(lián)對(duì)阿富汗的戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)中，阿富汗當(dāng)?shù)氐膫魅静∫彩窃斐商K軍受挫的一個(gè)重大原因。 據(jù)統(tǒng)計(jì)，在阿富汗作戰(zhàn)的蘇軍士兵有三分之二染上了疾病。甲肝、傷寒、瘧疾、痢疾甚至瘟疫是折磨蘇軍的主要疾病。 都勒說(shuō)："不夸張地說(shuō)，是沒(méi)有硝煙的病痛讓蘇軍打了敗仗。" 自從去年11月美軍在阿富汗地區(qū)展開(kāi)軍事行動(dòng)至今，美軍士兵的染病率在1%左右。其中大部分是由于當(dāng)?shù)氐母吆０魏蛪m土環(huán)境導(dǎo)致的呼吸系統(tǒng)疾病。 在阿富汗，有許多疾病是通過(guò)水或食物傳播的，因此美軍的主要措施就是改善基礎(chǔ)衛(wèi)生條件。部隊(duì)為在外作戰(zhàn)的士兵提供瓶裝抗菌水、洗手液，并警告他們離當(dāng)?shù)厥称愤h(yuǎn)一點(diǎn)。 但所有的這些措施都是不夠的。都勒無(wú)奈地說(shuō)："歸根結(jié)蒂，戰(zhàn)爭(zhēng)本來(lái)就不是健康的。" scares the hell out of me： 把我嚇了一大跳
bottom line: 底線 （中國(guó)日?qǐng)?bào)網(wǎng)站譯） |
Updated: 2002-12-06 01:00
