CNN – With the Zika outbreak widening in Brazil, a leading Canadian public health professor says the summer Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro should be postponed or moved to prevent “a foreseeable global catastrophe” resulting in the deaths of adults and in babies born with malformed heads.
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World Health Organization urged the sex partners of pregnant women to practice safe sex or abstain from sex for the remainder of the pregnancy, if they have recently returned from visits to Rio or other areas where the virus is circulating.
But his point of view is hotly contested by Olympic and global health authorities including the WHO, which are adamant the August 5 to 21 Games will not be derailed by the virus.
Most British athletes are due to prepare for the Games at a training camp in Belo Horizonte, a city in central Brazil, before going on to Rio. “The Games will take place during Brazil’s wintertime when there are fewer Zika-spreading Aedes-mosquitos and the risk of being bitten is lower”, the organization said in a statement.
However, BBC Sports revealed that International Olympic Committee medical director Richard Budgett said it would continue to monitor the situation closely.
Attaran is not the first public health official to call for the games to be postponed because of the Zika risk; New York-based academics Arthur Caplan and Lee Igel wrote in an article in Forbes in February that hosting the Olympics at a site teeming with the virus is “quite simply, irresponsible”.
The Olympic heptathlon champion is considering missing a preparation camp for Rio 2016 as concerns about the brain bug rise, according to a national newspaper. The illness is usually mild; however, infection during pregnancy can cause serious birth defects.
[Photos by Victor Moriyama/Getty Images] Adding to Zika-related trepidation, Ammir Attaran warned, “Zika infection is more unsafe, and Brazil’s outbreak more extensive, than scientists reckoned a short time ago”.
To date, there are 26,000 suspected cases of the infection in Rio de Janeiro, putting it on the center of Brazil’s Zika outbreak. The organization also claims Brazil’s winter season, beginning in July, should reduce the number of mosquitos in the country.
Even as the International Olympic Committee has attempted to allay concerns regarding the Zika virus, many participants and health officials are still vexed over myriad health concerns that Zika raises. Pregnant women are also not encouraged to travel to areas with documented Zika cases.
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“The team doctor has shared with us information regarding the Zika virus, like its mode of transmission and prevention and precautions to take when we are in Rio for the Olympics”, he explained.
