When I was five, I left Singapore with my family to move to the UK, travelling by boat for six weeks. Had I boarded with one of the many strains of avian flu circulating then, as now, in Asia, I would either have recovered or died en route, infecting only other passengers. Today, I often travel between my workplace in Vietnam and the UK in less than a day. Were I to bring a new, transmissible infection, I would become a vector of potentially global concern.
我五歲那年,全家從新加坡遷往英國。我們當時坐船在海上航行了6個星期。和現在一樣,當時的亞洲也流行著多種禽流感。假如我上船前感染了其中一種,那麼我要麼在途中痊癒、要麼死在船上,但只會傳染給船上其他的乘客。如今,我常常往來於越南工作地點和英國,旅途只用花不到一天的時間。如果我攜帶了一種新的傳染性病毒,那麼我可能有必要受到全世界的關切。
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