“With more than 7,000 athletes, 8,000 volunteers and 2,000 staff participating, there was not a single case of contamination (infection)”.
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Since May 2015, Brazil has experienced a significant outbreak of Zika virus which has mostly been transmitted via mosquito bites.
Dr. David Heymann, chair of the Health Protection Agency in Britain and leader of the WHO panel, told Reuters last week that postponing the Rio Olympics due to fears that the event could speed the spread of the virus would create a false sense of security, because travellers are constantly going in and out of Brazil. Zika cases are also falling and are expected to continue to fall in the five Brazilian cities outside Rio that will host Olympic football matches.
Verrill revealed in an article for Standard Issue magazine that she and Milo would not travel to Brazil to watch Rutherford, who won gold in the long jump at the London 2012 Games.
On Tuesday morning, “Today” anchor Savannah Guthrie announced on air that she is pregnant with her second child. In the letter, health experts from different countries including the United States, Great Britain, Brazil, and South Africa, warned “an unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic”.
We know Zika causes microcephaly and other birth defects in infants, but there are many other unknowns.
“The doctors say that we shouldn’t because of the Zika virus, so I’ll miss it”, she said on the show Tuesday.
Though Brazil is the country hardest hit by Zika, which provoked panic in the country’s northeast a year ago and early 2016, contagion has slowed in recent months even as it spread to more than 60 other countries and territories.
Police said in a statement Tuesday that the searches grew out of suspicions about alleged fraud in the transport and disposal of debris from construction at the Olympic site in Rio’s Deodoro neighborhood. “I would never tell any athlete who’s worked their butt off for four years not to go to the games”. There’s been an increase in sales over the past six to eight weeks, he added.
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Committee doctors said there was a need to “remain engaged but not worried” about Zika, noting that only one in four people who have the disease develops its symptoms.
