Zika Virus: Health experts push for Olympics to be delayed or moved from Rio

By Beth Ann Nichols

GOLFWEEK.COM

The Olympic rings are seen at Madureira Park, the third largest park in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 400 days ahead of the Rio 2016 Olympic games. (Getty Images)

Health experts from around the globe are urging the United Nation’s World Health Organization to either delay or move the 2016 Olympics Games in Rio de Janeiro.
More than 100 doctors, scientists and researchers signed an open letter that states its not only dangerous, but unethical to hold the summer games as scheduled due to threats associated with the Zika virus.
“The Brazilian strain of Zika virus harms health in ways that science has not observed before,” the letter states. “An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic. Should that happen to poor, as-yet unaffected places (e.g., most of South Asia and Africa) the suffering can be great. It is unethical to run the risk, just for Games that could proceed anyway, if postponed and/or moved.”
The letter writers note that despite Rio’s new mosquito-killing program, the transmission of the mosquito-borne disease has increased rather than decreased. Rio’s health system is so weakened, they say, that a last-minute push against Zika isn’t possible.
“While the virus is the infectious agent of Zika, its real cause is Rio’s poor social conditions and sanitation—factors that lack a quick fix, and that are not helped when shrinking health resources are diverted to the Games,” the letter states.
The experts also expressed concerns that the WHO has rejected alternatives to the Rio games because the organization is in an official partnership with the International Olympic Committee, and therefore has a conflict of interest.
The Zika virus is spread by mosquitoes and by sexual intercourse. It has caused more than 1,000 confirmed cases of the birth defect microcephaly (in which babies are born with unusually small heads and brains) and appears to be linked to neurological and autoimmune disorders like the paralyzing Guillain-Barre syndrome, according to a recent cover story in Time Magazine.

Victoria Lovelady, a Brazilian-born golfer who competes on the Ladies European Tour, travels back to Brazil frequently to visit family and work on her game. Lovelady said in a recent interview with Golfweek that she is “super cautious” when she returns to Brazil, putting on repellant three times a day. The golf courses, she said, are full of mosquitoes.
“I have friends that are pregnant now and they are leaving the country to be pregnant,” Lovelady said. One friend she recently met up with was covered in stocking and long sleeves, doing everything she could to make sure she didn’t get bit.
That being said, Lovelady has every intent to compete in the games should she qualify. As host country, Brazil is guaranteed at least one participant in the 60-player field.
The CDC states that men with symptoms of Zika are at risk of passing along the virus to sexual partners for at least six months after symptoms begin.
LPGA player Brittany Lincicome said in March that she and her husband have discussed him staying home during the Aug. 17-20 women’s golf competition, should she qualify, so they’d cut their chances of contracting the virus in half.