The outbreak of swine flu that was first detected in Mexico was declared a global epidemic on June 11, 2009. It is the first worldwide epidemic (1) _____ by the World Health Organization in 41 years.

    The heightened alert (2) _____ an emergency meeting with flu experts in Geneva that assembled after a sharp rise in cases in Australia, and rising (3) _____ in Britain, Japan, Chile and elsewhere.

    But the epidemic is “ (4) _____ ” in severity, according to Margaret Chan, the organization’s director general, (5) _____ the overwhelming majority of patients experiencing only mild symptoms and a full recovery, often in the (6) _____ of any medical treatment.

    The outbreak came to global (7) _____ in late April 2009, when Mexican authorities noted an unusually large number of hospitalizations and deaths (8) _____ healthy adults. As much of Mexico City shut down at the height of a panic, cases began to (9) _____ in New York City, the southwestern United States and around the world.

    In the United States, new cases seemed to fade (10) _____ warmer weather arrived. But in late September 2009, officials reported there was (11) _____ flu activity in almost every state and that virtually all the (12) _____ tested are the new swine flu, also known as (A) H1N1, not seasonal flu. In the U. S., it has (13) _____ more than one million people, and caused more than 600 deaths and more than 6,000 hospitalizations.

    Federal health officials (14) _____ Tamiflu for children from the national stockpile and began (15 ) _____orders from the states for the new swine flu vaccine. The new vaccine, which is different from the annual flu vaccine, is (16) _____ ahead of expectations. More than three million doses were to be made available in early October 2009, though most of those (17) _____ doses were of the FluMist nasal spray type, which is not (18) _____ for pregnant women, people over 50 or those with breathing difficulties, heart disease or several other (19) _____. But it was still possible to vaccinate people in other high-risk groups: health care workers, people (20) _____ infants and healthy young people.

答案精析：动词辨析题。原文首句提到，在墨西哥发现的猪流感疫情被宣布为全球流行病。空格所在句是对前一句的进一步解释说明，具有强调语意，应和首句所表达的意思相近。It is the first worldwide epidemic中的It代指前一句中的swine flu（猪流感），空格处要填过去分词作后置定语，修饰worldwide epidemic（世界性流行病）。根据语意，这是世界卫生组织41年来第一次 的全球性流行病。再结合四个选项的词义可知，此空应填入designated，表示“被世界卫生组织认定的全球性流行病”。

错项排除：A、C两项代入原文后明显和语意不符，并且世界卫生组织对于流行病的功能不应该是批判或者评论，故排除A、C两项。B项为强干扰项，也有“指定”的意思，但appoint后面通常跟sb.，表示“任命某人为……”，或者多指约定的时间和地点，故B项错误。