vocabulary from casual reading
Terms
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- In short, H5N1 bird flu has become endemic.
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en·dem·ic [adj]
(1) Prevalent in or peculiar to a particular locality, region, or people: diseases endemic to the tropics. See Synonyms at native.
(2) Ecology. Native to or confined to a certain region. - FOR the epidemiologists of East Asia, April has been a cruel month. On the 6th, the outbreak of influenza that has afflicted millions of the region's birds claimed its 50th human victim, a young girl in Vietnam.
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ep·i·de·mi·ol·o·gy [n.]
The branch of medicine that deals with the study of the causes, distribution, and control of disease in populations. - Some officials may have made things worse by trying to cover up outbreaks in order to protect their country's poultry exports. By the time governments resorted to culling, the disease was widespread.
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cull [tr.v.] culled, cull·ing, culls
(1) To pick out from others; select.
(2) To gather; collect.
(3) To remove rejected members or parts from (a herd, for example). - The best way to prevent a human epidemic, of course, is to end the avian one.
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a·vi·an [adj.]
Of, relating to, or characteristic of birds. - Yet if a human epidemic--which could very easily become a pandemic, an outbreak on a global scale--is to be ruled out then this "reservoir" for the disease needs to be eliminated.
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pan·dem·ic [adj.]
(1) Widespread; general.
(2) Medicine. Epidemic over a wide geographic area and affecting a large proportion of the population: pandemic influenza.
[n.] A pandemic disease. - After months of prevarication, the government meekly gave in a fortnight ago to a demand that the new machine-readable Pakistani passport should note a person's religious status.
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pre·var·i·cate [intr.v.] pre·var·i·cat·ed, pre·var·i·cat·ing, pre·var·i·cates
To stray from or evade the truth; equivocate. - Who is president of Pakistan? (4/19/05)
- President Pervez Musharraf
- Who is China's prime minister?
- Wen Jiabao
- Who is India's prime minister?
- Manmohan Singh
- Who is Afghanistan's first democratically elected president?
- Hamid Karzai