Rio de Janeiro (AP) – Just days ahead of the Olympic Games the waterways of Rio de Janeiro are as filthy as ever, contaminated with raw human sewage teeming with unsafe viruses and bacteria, according to a 16-month-long study commissioned by The Associated Press.
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The study, which was commissioned by the Associated Press, found that the waterways surrounding the Brazilian city are teeming with risky viruses and bacteria, and both athletes and tourists are at risk.
Nobel Peace Laureate Prof Muhammad Yunus will bear the torch of the Rio Olympic Games which is starting in the Brazilian city on August 5.
With just days to go until the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics in Rio, there are more serious concerns about the water athletes will be sailing on and swimming in.
But antibiotics combat bacterial infections, not viruses.
“That’s a very, very, very high percentage”, said Dr. Valerie Harwood, Chair of the Department of Integrative Biology at the University of South Florida. “You just would not see this”.
Though national teams have taken measures to prevent their athletes contracting an illness, 300,000 to 500,000 foreigners attending the event have not.
Rio dumps at least half of its untreated sewage into the water surrounding the city, soiling many of its world-famous beaches.
Danger is lurking even in the sand.
“It has been a long and testing journey to get to this point”, Bach said. “That’s the scariest point to me”.
Duarte said more than 3,000 vehicles will be used by security officials during the Olympics, including three blimps that will fly over the city to transmit high resolution images. This June, over 37 million adenoviruses per liter were detected.
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“We haven’t made it to Rio yet and I have no idea what to expect in Rio, but it’s been lovely here”, Solo said ahead of Wednesday’s opener against New Zealand, to be played in the same city where the USA men upset England in the 1950 World Cup. Solo, in her third Olympics, said it seemed problems in Brazil were being blown out of proportion by media in the United States.
