National Olympic Committee of Kenya (NOCK) head Kipchoge Keino had said earlier that Kenya would not “risk taking Kenyans there if this Zika virus reaches epidemic levels”, and that he was seeking reassurance from organisers. “Bottom line”, said Donald Anthony, president and board chairman of USA Fencing.
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The US Olympic Committee (USOC) on Monday refuted an “inaccurate” report that it had advised American athletes to reconsider competing in the Rio Games because of concern about the Zika.
Having won majority of the medals in the last games in London 2012, the United States team displays an important presence in the Rio Olympics.
Sandusky told NBC News that USOC is closely following the situation in Brazil via constant correspondence with the International Olympic Committee, the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
However, USOC spokesman Patrick Sandusky has denied this is the case.
Jones declined to comment further or respond to specific questions from Reuters before publication.
Let’s say you’re a female athlete who, though years of hard work and dedication, has ascended to the top of her sport. (FWIW, British health officials say six months for men who showed Zika symptoms or tested positive and 28 days for men who did not.) This can put a wrench in couples’ plans to conceive, too.
The 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro have already been tainted by fears about the Zika virus, which is rapidly spreading through Central and South America. It generally causes mild symptoms but has been blamed for a rapid rise in the number of children born with microcephaly – abnormally small heads and brains.
The hardest hit country is Brazil, which hosts the Summer Olympics starting in August. The link to Zika is unproven but strongly suspected.
“Secondly, the International Olympic Committee owns the Olympics and it is they who advise member NOCs on whether to send athletes to the games and, thus far, we have not received such advisories on (not) travelling to Rio”. “If an athlete feels that way, of course they may decide not to go”.
“The present 20-fold reported increase of microcephaly in parts of Brazil is temporally associated with the outbreak of Zika virus”, they wrote. The soccer tournament has games scheduled in places other than Rio, some of which have a high incidence of mosquito-borne viruses.
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They passed on mosquito avoidance advice, but remained confident the Games would go ahead. Speaking at a news conference in advance of the US team’s tournament opener against Costa Rica, coach Jill Ellis said there have been “constant conversations behind the scenes” about the virus. At present, there is no vaccine or medication to treat Zika. In El Salvador women are advised to not being pregnant until 2018.
