2014年职称英语理工类完形填空试题（3）

Better Control of TB Seen If a Faster Cure Is Found

　　The World Health Organization1 estimates that about one-third of all people are infected with bacteria that cause tuberculosis . Most times, the infection remains inactive. But each year about eight million people develop active cases of TB, usually in their ______1______. Two million people die ______2______ it. The disease has ______3______ with the spread of AIDS and drug-resistant forms of tuberculosis.

　　Current treatments take at least six months. People have to ______4______ a combination of several antibiotic drugs daily. But many people stop ______5______ they feel better. Doing that can _______6______ to an infection that resists treatment. Public health experts agree that a faster-acting cure for tuberculosis would be more effective. Now a study estimates just how _______7______it might be. A professor of international health at Harvard University2 led the study. Joshua Salomon says a shorter treatment program would likely mean not just more patients _______8_____. It would also mean ______9______infectious patients who can pass on their infection to others.

　　The researchers developed a mathematical model to examine the effects of a two-month treatment plan. They ______10______the model with current TB conditions in Southeast Asia. The scientists found that a two-month treatment could prevent about twenty percent of new cases. And it might ______11______about twenty-five percent of TB deaths. The model shows that these ______12_____would take place between two thousand twelve and two thousand thirty. That is, if a faster cure is developed and in wide use by two thousand twelve.

　　The World Health Organization ______13______the DOTS3 program in nineteen ninety. DOTS is Directly Observed Treatment, Short-course. Health workers watch tuberculosis patients take their daily pills to make ______14______they continue treatment.

　　Earlier this year, an international partnership of organizations announced a plan to expand the DOTS program. The ten-year plan also aims to finance research ______15______new TB drugs. The four most common drugs used now are more than forty years old. The Global Alliance for TB Drug Development4 says its long-term goal is a treatment that could work in as few as ten doses.