As the 2016 olympic games loom ahead, athletes are preparing for a physical test beyond athletic competition: a risk of contacting the Zika virus in Brazil, where the WHO has declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
The virus has been linked to a surge of microcephaly, a birth defect that has caused brain damage and deformities among thousands of babies born in Brazil. But how great, exactly, is the risk?
Although it will be the ‘Summer Games,’ Brazil is in its winter season, when mosquitoes aren’t quite as pervasive. According to Brazil’s new health minister, Ricardo Barros, the winter season means less mosquitoes, which means an “almost zero” risk of becoming infected with the virus. Yet new research shows that Zika might be spread more often through sexual activity than through contact with mosquitoes.
“The health minister’s focus is on the chance of getting bitten, and it is small,” Medical Ethicist Art Caplan said in an interview with Boston Public Radio Thursday. “But there are other ways you can get it.”
Caplan, who has led the charge to either postpone or move the Olympics to another venue outside of Rio, says regardless of contact with mosquitoes, the risk is still great when taking the nature of the event into consideration.
“There are really two other issues that he’s not talking about,” Caplan said. “One is, people bringing Zika there from other places, including Southern U.S., Puerto Rico, and transmitting it sexually at this big party they’re all about to go to....The other is, if you get sexual transmission there, or any kind of transmission, and you bring it back to a country that doesn’t have Zika, but has nice warm temperatures and lots of mosquitos to bite you there, you can spread it out to the rest of the world.”
The verdict? Even if you can avoid the bugs, there is still a risk of infection.
Medical Ethicist Art Caplan is Head of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center ad the co-host of the Everyday Ethics podcast. To hear more of his interview with BPR, click on the audio link above.
