The 2016 Summer Olympic games kick off this week in Rio de Janeiro, the first South American city to host the olympics. Instead of the much-anticipated buildup NBC had hoped for, stories emerging from Rio show that the city may face some incredible challenges— ranging from Zika outbreaks to murder, robberies and pollution problems, including contaminated waterways expected to be used by 1,400 athletes and 300,000 to 500,000 foreign visitors.
Earlier in the week, we asked our BPR listeners: Would you visit the Summer Games in Rio? If you’re planning a trip, Medical Ethicist Art Caplan has a few recommendations. Firstly, do not go. “Let me add—I like the olympics. I watch the olympics, I’m not anti-olympics...I get the fun of the whole thing,” Caplan said. “But, Brazil and Rio are pretty scary places to visit right now, in terms of just public health, put aside terrorism or robbery or crime or that sort of stuff.”
If you’re determined to stick it out, here’s Caplan’s survival guide:
Don’t have sex.
“Don’t hire prostitutes, don’t have sexual relations with anybody for the time you’re down there, and I mean all forms of sexual relations,” Caplan said. “If you can’t do that, let’s go to safe sex, because we know what that is from HIV, and you want to follow the same precautions. I’m worried more about the sexual transmission route.”
When you’re back? Nope — you still can’t have sex.
“When you come back, you also need to be prudent,” Caplan said. “Just because you’re not there anymore, you shouldn’t have unprotected sex probably for 3-6 months. You really have to be careful about that.”
No seriously— don’t have sex.
“The athletes, apparently, will be swimming in condoms down there, they’ve got a lot in the village. I’m not sure where you get them when you’re not in the village, and the fans worry me more than the athletes, to tell you the truth,” Caplan said. “The fans may be visiting with sex workers, they may be hooking up, I don’t think they’re going to do much in the way of precautions, but it’s a big party. That’s why people go there, is to have a good time, so that worries me. Even in the HIV epidemic we didn’t get great condom use or safe-sex practices, that didn’t happen.”
Don’t donate blood.
“That’s really important for the rest of us,” Caplan said.
Bug spray. All day.
“You do want to put on your bug repellant frequently, it’s like suntan lotion, it’ll wear off, so use it a lot,” Caplan said. “The mosquitos that carry this stuff tend to come out in the daylight, so early morning, and evening, those are times maybe not to be wandering around outside. Wear long sleeves and long pants… so you don’t get bitten. Remember, there are other diseases besides Zika, there’s dengue [fever] and other mosquito-borne diseases.”
Do not go swimming.
“If I were you, I would stay out of the water,” Caplan said. “Sewage is everywhere in Rio, they never fixed anything. It’s been a huge problem for the city for a long time, and again, not just for the athletes, if you look at where the bacteria are, they’re all in the water and on the beaches.”
Consider bug-repellant clothing.
“It’s been around for a long time, if you go to malaria-infested areas around the world, you can… buy shirts and pants that are permeated with bug spray,” Caplan said. “I’ve used them in Mozambique and some other countries, and they do work. If you wash the shirt 400 times, you’ll wash the stuff right out of there, but assuming you haven’t bleached the pesticide away, it’s pretty good. It’s not going to really hurt you [because] it’s on your outer clothing, so to speak, so it’s not going to leech in or anything like that. It’s something to think about.”
