Rio Olympics Will Spark Global Health Disaster

Doctors have warned that the 2016 Rio Olympics will spark a “full-blown public health disaster”, due to the ongoing Zika virus emergency in Brazil.  The Zika virus has spread throughout South America since May 2015 and latin America has been officially declared a health emergency by the World Health Organization (WHO). Rio de Janeiro has the highest number of suspected cases than any other area, and doctors have warned that the 2016 Olympic Games could create a global health disaster if they go ahead. Independent.co.uk reports: The continued presence of the virus ahead of the summer Olympics has caused athletes and health specialists to question the risks involved in allowing the Games to go ahead with hundreds of thousands of spectators travelling to the city. Writing in the Harvard Public Health Review, Dr Amir Attaran said the Games could speed up the spread of the virus, and suggested the Games could be hosted by another city in Brazil where the illness is less of a threat. He said: “While Brazil’s Zika inevitably will spread globally, given enough time, viruses always do – it helps nobody to speed that up. “In particular, it cannot possibly help when an estimated 500,000 foreign tourists flock into [...]