Does Anyone Else Think That the Rio Olympics Should be Moved in Light of Zika?

May 11, 2016 – When you don’t have a cure for a disease that is easily spread by mosquitoes, and when you have a country that appears to be in the state of political collapse, how can you blindly go ahead with this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Even former Brazilian soccer star, Rivaldo, in the last week warned people on his Facebook page about the violence in Rio de Janeiro and the problems the city and country is facing. He advised people not to come. That’s quite a startling comment from a revered Brazilian athlete.

But the violence that has been part of the Rio scene for decades is only one factor in my own conclusions that these Games are a threat to world health. Forget about Brazilian democracy in freefall. The real issue is Zika. Two days ago, a professor at the University of Ottawa argued for a postponement or change in venue for this summer’s Olympics. Amir Attaran, Faculty of Medicine and Law, published a commentary in the Harvard Public Health Review in which he stated “Zika infection is more dangerous, and Brazil’s outbreak more extensive, than scientists reckoned a short time ago. Which leads to a bitter truth: the 206 Olympic and Paralympic Games must be postponed, moved, or both, as a precautionary concession.”

Attaran provided five justifications for this position:

1. Although Zika first broke out in the northeastern part of Brazil it is now well established in Rio even though back in January the International Olympic Committee declared Rio to be safe. He argues that conditions since January have changed and that Brazil’s Ministry of Health has fumbled the ball on Zika’s rate of occurrence and its spread. He concludes that Rio is not on “the fringes of the outbreak, but inside its heart.”
2. The strain of Zika virus in Brazil is more dangerous than the Zika that was first identified in Africa some 70 years ago. This Zika has evolved with the risk of microcephaly 23 to 53 times greater. When microcephaly first showed up in Brazil the correlation with Zika was tenuous. But now the evidence confirms a causal link to a unique microcephaly that infects fetal brains. In addition the Zika strain is impacting adults with a 60 times more likely increase in nervous system damage and Guillain-Barre disease.
3. The Olympics will bring athletes from all over the world into the Zika hotspot along with an estimated 500,000 foreign visitors. The potential for a global spread of Zika from exposure to the mosquito that transmits the virus, and sexual transmission of the disease will mean a global outbreak. This is a pandemic waiting to happen.
4. A vaccine has not yet been developed for Zika to innoculate those coming to the Games and the time to get this done is far too short with the event less than 100 days away. In addition Brazil has fumbled the handling of controls that could reduce the mosquito population responsible for Zika. The government has genetically modified mosquitoes produced by a British company but has been reluctant to do widespread release of this insect control mechanism even in the face of strong evidence of the efficacy of its use.
5. Proceeding with the Games violates the Olympics’ social responsibility. To become the source of a global pandemic counters everything the spirit of the Olympics stands for.

Attaran asks, “But for the Games, would anyone recommend sending an extra half a million visitors into Brazil right now?”

Even without the Games acting as a disease agent in spreading Zika, the virus has found its way into Central America and now the United States. The Center for Disease Control recently reported 426 cases on the mainland and 599 cases in Puerto Rico, American Samoa and the Virgin Islands. The spread on the mainland will increase as the mosquito harboring the virus spreads in the Northern Hemisphere’s summer.

A vaccine may not be available until 2018 state U.S. scientists. And others argue that the threat of a Zika pandemic requires all the tools of modern technology be deployed including the use of gene altered mosquitoes designed not to reproduce. Florida has recently experimented with such modified mosquitoes to address Dengue fever, a disease also spread by the same mosquito species.

So we have no vaccine, a Brazilian government in disarray and denial, and a host hotspot city about to receive athletes and visitors from around the world. Is this crazy or not? With the machinery of the Olympics doing its own impression of Titanic and sailing full speed ahead towards an ice berg, I hope I am proven wrong.

Related articles across the web

• Zika Won’t Stop Athletes from Competing in Olympics
• South Korea Reveals Zika-Proof Clothing for Rio
• Brazil wrestles chaos 100 days before Olympics