Brazil is experiencing a surge of the mosquito-borne disease which causes flu-like symptoms.
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The reigning Olympic long jump champion goes to Brazil.
Not taking any risks of contracting the virus and transmitting it to his partner and possibly their unborn children, British long jumper and Olympic champion Greg Rutherford has made a decision to have his sperm frozen.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) advises, based on current assessment, cancelling or changing the location of the 2016 Olympics will not significantly alter the worldwide spread of the Zika virus. His girlfriend, Susie Verrill, said the couple were increasingly anxious about the virus which can cause birth defects.
“We make this call despite the widespread fatalism that the Rio 2016 Games are inevitable or “too big to fail”.
“We’d love to have more children and with research in its infancy, I wouldn’t want to put myself in a situation which could have been prevented”.
In a media briefing open to worldwide journalists, Rio organisers say that mosquito eradication measures are performed on all Olympic venues daily, and that all athletes, coaches and officials travelling to the Games will be given mosquito repellent when landing in Brazil. And just because the mother has Zika doesn’t mean her child will be born with microcephaly.
It is claimed that once infected the virus will remain in a person’s bloodstream for one to two weeks, however various organs of the body can then pass on the virus for another fortnight. It’s relatively mild. You get a fever, a rash, you feel lousy.
The 29-year-old Rutherford, however, is the first known case of an Olympic athlete freezing his sperm.
The health experts also highlighted how some games were relocated because of diseases such as the Major League Baseball did for Zika, and the Africa Cup of Nations did for Ebola. “That’s true. However, now they’re just finding the link between birth defects and things like that”.
“I know people that are personally from that part of the world, and they say Zika has been around for centuries”, said Linde-Kaminski.
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“There’s the case of sexual transmission”. Western New York Olympians Jake Linde-Kaminski and Jennifer Suhr are headed to Rio, but both said contracting the Zika virus is the least of their worries.
