And the Olympic organising committee has had to deal with news that several famous sportsmen – including golf world number one Jason Day – have withdrawn from the games because of fears about the Zika virus.
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Meanwhile, the CDC continued to advise all pregnant women to avoid traveling to any areas where Zika virus transmission is ongoing, including Rio de Janeiro.
CDC researchers made their predictions based on a range of factors, including air travel patterns between Brazil and other countries and the presence of a tropical mosquito that is the main way Zika spreads to people.
US researchers tried to calculate whether the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, which is in the midst of a Zika epidemic, will lead to outbreaks that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. This type of weather typically reduces mosquito populations and therefore lowers the risk of infection, the CDC said. “In 44 test events held in Rio ahead of these Games, which included more than 7,000 athletes, 8,000 volunteers and 2,000 staff, there have been no serious health concerns, according to Rio officials, and no reported cases of Zika”. More travelers would mean a greater likelihood of spreading Zika.
The four nations at greatest risk from the Olympics generally have no or very few travelers to Zika outbreak countries. These scenarios assumed that Zika transmission would not decrease during the winter months, that preventive measures to protect against mosquito bites would not be taken, that anyone who was infected with Zika would have symptoms when they returned to their home countries, that people who were infected would return home immediately and that the home countries would not use precautions to prevent mosquito bites in their home countries.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that 19 countries that now do not have Zika have the right conditions for outbreaks if it is imported by people returning from the Olympics.
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Assuming all that, they concluded that of the 206 countries participating in the games, four – Chad, Djibouti, Eritrea, and Yemen – are at risk of potential Olympic-related Zika importations.
