Now, U.S. researchers have identified a new way to treat people infected with tuberculosis (肺结核)before they get sick.

Tuberculosis is one of the world’s most ______ health threats.The World Health Organization says tuberculosis kills nearly two million people each year. Another two billion are ______: they are infected, but don’t have symptoms of the disease. Those at highest risk can take medicine, but Vanderbilt University researcher Timothy Sterling says not everyone ______ with the treatment, which is a daily dose of isoniazid(异烟肼，抗结核药)for nine months. So although the medication is highly effective if people take all of their medication, many people do not take all their medication and therefore the effectiveness of the treatment plan is______. As a(n) ______, Sterling and his colleagues ______ isoniazid with another drug, rifapentine(利福喷汀).The combination was taken weekly, not daily, for just three months. And the results of this study showed that the new treatment plan ---- the three months of isoniazid and rifapentine---- was as effective as the nine–month isoniazid treatment plan.______, the short-course, three-month treatment plan had higher treatment completion rates and was also well ______.

There was some other difference. The two-drug, combination treatment was administered as directly ______ therapy. That means the patients took their medicine in the presence of a health care worker, to ensure that they followed the treatment plan. This was a large study, involving 7,500 participants in North America, Spain, and Brazil. Sterling ______ that most of the people in this study were HIV-negative. The results might be ______for HIV-positive people. A recent study in South Africa indicated that the combination therapy works well in people infected with HIV as well as tuberculosis, but the study was too small to be______.

Timothy Sterling’s research, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, has been ______ by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC. The government health agency recommends the 12-dose weekly combination treatment as an equal alternative to the 270–dose daily treatment plan that has been the______therapy. But because of possible ______ issues, the CDC still recommends the daily treatment plan for HIV–positive patients who are taking antiretroviral drugs or women who are pregnant. Also because of a lack of data, the CDC says children under age 12 should stay with the nine-month daily treatment.

The Motz family of Katy, Texas, says their lives changed after a visit to the dentist’s office.

Mason Motz, 6, was at Dr. Amy Luedemann-Lazar’s office to get ________ pulled when the pediatric dentist noticed a different issue. Mason had suffered from speech delays his whole life. He was born with Sotos Syndrome(综合症), a genetic disorder that affects growth and ________. The family thought his speech delays were due to the disorder, but it turns out that he was tongue-tied. The condition caused ________ range of motion with his mouth.

Since birth, Mason had suffered from breathing and sleeping issues, which ________ behavioral problems. When he ________, there were choking challenges. He also spent years in speech therapy.

Within hours of undergoing a minutes-long laser procedure to ________ the tongue-tie, Mason started talking in full sentences. These days, life is ________ different for the little boy. “He’s got a vocabulary now. He’s able to put together letters and words,” said Mason’s dad, Dalan Molz. The ________ is giving all the credit to Dr. Luedemann-Lazar, who specializes in treating special needs ________ and tongue-tied children.

In a home video ________ on his mother’s cell phone, you can see and ________ Mason reciting the events of his day and ________ science class. Mason’s parents say he is now thriving. “Words can hardly express our ________,” Motz said gratefully. Meredith and Dalan Motz say they’re eager to share their story with other families in a ________ situation. They encourage parents to ________ a second opinion, sometimes, a third or fourth opinion.

Year 2020 has witnessed the nation’s battle with the novel coronavirus pneumonia (肺炎). To prevent the _________ from spreading further, people from all over China have been making changes to their everyday lives.

Most people take their _________, wear masks, wash their hands often and don’t go out _________ it’s necessary. One of the most _________ changes was that many Chinese people didn’t _________ to celebrate the Spring Festival, a tradition that _________ over 4,000 years ago.

Indeed, people have _________ chosen to stay home to prevent further human-to-human spread.

The situation is quite unusual. Many schools and places of work have _________ their return date, although that didn’t stop _________ and students from working and studying at home.

February 17 was planned to be the first day of the new term. On that day, many teachers began __________ online lessons. Bored at home, some people began to learn new things to __________ their newfound time, such as baking a cake or knitting a sweater.

The film Contagion (2011) showed the worst-case scenario (可能的情况) after a worldwide epidemic. Fortunately, the situation in China couldn’t be more __________ than the movie. Rather than __________ and food storage, everything has worked out rather well in China so far. More than 30,000 healthcare workers in over 100 medical teams gathered and thousands of __________ workers came to build hospitals in Wuhan, Hubei province. Thousands of volunteers are working nonstop to help deliver supplies and ________ the affected regions.

It’s not the first time people have come together during a natural __________. When Hurricane Katrina hit the US in 2005, over 60,000 people, from both the affected communities and outside it, __________. These helpers brought food and water, removed waste and searched for __________ victims on rooftops.

“It’s a popular myth (谬见) that when disasters strike, people fall into __________. In reality, we’re more likely to rush in to help others than run past them to __________ ourselves,” wrote American psychologist Kelly Caldwell in Pacific Standard. “It’s an exercise in mass healing (集体治疗).”