According to a story published on the topic by Time, “In a case reported in France, a 24-year-old woman was infected with the virus after having sex with a 46-year-old man who had just returned to Paris from Rio de Janeiro, a hot zone for Zika, the New York Times reported”.
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Attaran said. “The bread and circuses of the Olympics for the entertainment of a very privileged few does not merit placing at risk the poor slum-dwellers in tropical countries who are at greatest risk”.
“Most data related to congenital manifestations of Zika infection remain unpublished”, WHO scientists said in the editorial, published in the Bulletin of the World Health Organization.
Senator Shaheen welcomed Dr Chan’s commitment. Zika has been linked to a birth defect called microcephaly, a condition that causes babies to be born with abnormally small heads and underdeveloped brains.
But Amir Attaran, one of more than 200 experts who signed an open letter last month calling on World Health Organization to convene an independent group to consider if the games should be delayed or moved, said yesterday that the committee’s members include David L. Heymann, a former World Health Organization insider; an aviation consultant; and two communications experts.
“The last meeting was 8 March and the June meeting is being planned”.
Steve Penny, the president of USA Gymnastics says officials have been keeping an eye on the Zika advisories and information coming from the International Olympic Committee and the U.S. Olympic Committee and will support any decisions the athletes make.
“WHO does not decide on whether to hold, cancel or postpone the Games”, she said.
He says he wants more children and going to Rio was not worth the risk. However, the virus can also cause severe birth defects and hence it is suggested for pregnant women not to travel to the countries where Zika outbreak has been reported. The researchers also established that sexual contact could also lead to spread of the virus.
For awhile now, experts studying the babies born to women who were infected with Zika in pregnancy have warned that microcephaly appears to be the tip of a much larger iceberg.
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Women living in such areas should meanwhile delay getting pregnant, while women who have had unprotected sex and do not wish to become pregnant should have “ready access to emergency contraceptive services and counselling”, according to WHO.
