The Zika virus, a mosquito-born disease, has been linked to microcephaly, a devastating birth defect. The virus has spread across Brazil and into other South American countries as it marches north to the US.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been issuing regular announcements and using social media, particularly Twitter, to disseminate important information to physicians and citizens, particularly travelers. As of this writing, the CDC has 47 individual Zika-related travel warnings on its website.
One big question regarding travel is: Is it safe to go to the Olympic and Paralympic Games, which are scheduled for August – September, 2016 in Brazil, the epicenter of the Zika virus epidemic?
Currently, the CDC suggests that pregnant women not go to the Olympic Games and warns other healthy, non-pregnant people to be cautious if they do go.
This week the Harvard Public Health Review published a strongly worded commentary calling for the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro to be cancelled because of the risk of spreading Zika across the globe more quickly. The author, Amir Attaran DPhil, clearly details five specific reasons why the games should be canceled or moved to a new location and offers several historical examples of disruption in the scheduling of the games. Attaran concludes:
…But for the Games, would anyone recommend sending an extra half a million visitors into Brazil right now? Of course not: mass migration into the heart of an outbreak is a public health no-brainer. And given the choice between accelerating a dangerous new disease or not—for it is impossible that Games will slow Zika down—the answer should be a no-brainer for the Olympic organizers too. Putting sentimentality aside, clearly the Rio 2016 Games must not proceed…
None of this is meant to deny that the Games are a much-loved event. But where is the love for the possible victims of a foreseeable global catastrophe: the damaged or dead adults, and the babies for whom—and mark these coldly clinical words carefully—fetal brain disruption sequence is as terrible as it sounds, and extinguishes the hope of a normal life even before it has begun? With stakes like that, bluntly put, these Olympics are no game at all.
One thing is clear: The Zika virus is a serious public health threat. Plan your travel wisely, take precautions, and follow the CDC’s announcements.
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