{"id":16367,"date":"2016-05-12T08:00:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-12T15:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/canadian-professor-games-should-be-postponed-due-to-zika\/"},"modified":"2016-05-12T08:00:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-12T15:00:45","slug":"canadian-professor-games-should-be-postponed-due-to-zika","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/sports\/canadian-professor-games-should-be-postponed-due-to-zika\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian professor: Games should be postponed due to Zika"},"content":{"rendered":"

LONDON<\/strong> \u2014 With the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro less than three months away, a Canadian professor has called for the Olympics to be postponed or moved because of the Zika outbreak, warning the influx of visitors to Brazil will result in the avoidable birth of malformed babies.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut for the games, would anyone recommend sending an extra half a million visitors into Brazil right now?\u201d University of Ottawa professor Amir Attaran, who specializes in public health, said in an article published this week in the Harvard Public Health Review.<\/p>\n

Brazil is by far the country most affected by Zika, a mosquito-borne virus which has now been scientifically proven to cause a range of disturbing birth defects, including babies born with abnormally small heads and neurological problems.<\/p>\n

In February, the World Health Organization declared the epidemic to be a global health emergency. The WHO says there are no restrictions on travel or trade with countries affected by Zika outbreaks but advises pregnant women not to travel to those regions.<\/p>\n

Attaran\u2019s position is not shared by Olympic and global health authorities, who insist the Aug. 5-21 games will not be derailed by the virus.<\/p>\n

The International Olympic Committee, which follows the WHO\u2019s advice, said it has no plans to relocate or postpone the games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe clear statements from WHO that there should be no restrictions on travel and trade means there is no justification for canceling or delaying or postponing or moving the Rio Games,\u201d Dr. Richard Budgett, the IOC\u2019s medical director, told The Associated Press. \u201cThe IOC will continue to monitor the situation very closely and work with the WHO, and we\u2019re confident as we\u2019ve been advised by the experts that the situation will improve over the next three months.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Olympics are expected to draw about 500,000 visitors from abroad, a prospect that Attaran fears could spark new outbreaks elsewhere in the world and result in an increase in the number of brain-damaged babies born to infected pregnant women that might otherwise not have traveled to Brazil. He doesn\u2019t want the games to be canceled, but argues they should be delayed or moved.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the IOC and the World Health Organization do not have the generosity of heart to delay the games to prevent children being born and disabled their whole lives, then they\u2019re among the cruelest institutions in the world,\u201d Attaran, an outspoken critic of WHO, said in a telephone interview with the AP.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat I\u2019m asking for is a bit of delayed gratification so that babies aren\u2019t born permanently disabled.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Zika outbreak is just one of the challenges facing Brazil in the buildup to South America\u2019s first Olympics. Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff is facing impeachment, the economy is in deep recession and the country is gripped by a vast corruption scandal centered on state-controlled oil giant Petrobras.<\/p>\n

Attaran is not the first public health official to call for the games to be postponed because of the Zika risk; New York-based academics Arthur Caplan and Lee Igel wrote in an article in Forbes in February that hosting the Olympics at a site teeming with the virus is \u201cquite simply, irresponsible.\u201d<\/p>\n

The IOC and Brazilian organizers say the Zika threat will be mitigated because the games are taking place in the South American winter, reducing the mosquito population. But not everyone is convinced the Zika threat will subside entirely by August.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a wake-up call for authorities to look at the situation more closely,\u201d said Jimmy Whitworth, a professor of international public health at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, referring to Attaran\u2019s article.<\/p>\n

He was not linked to Attaran\u2019s paper and acknowledged it might be difficult to change any Olympic plans at this late stage.<\/p>\n

Whitworth said it was WHO\u2019s responsibility to make the health risks clear, even if that means issuing what could be very unpopular advice that could affect the Olympics.<\/p>\n

\u201cWHO isn\u2019t there to be popular, so they need to put that aside and consider the public health perspective,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

WHO spokesman Christian Lindmeier said it was important for every traveler who goes to the Rio Games to take precautions against mosquitoes and that pregnant women should speak with their doctors.<\/p>\n

World soccer\u2019s governing body seems to take Attaran\u2019s warnings seriously. Michel D\u2019Hooghe, chairman of the FIFA medical committee, described the Canadian\u2019s paper as \u201can alarming message\u201d and said he would ask FIFA\u2019s medical office for an evaluation and report to the ruling FIFA Council. The Olympic soccer tournament will be played in venues across Brazil, including areas where Zika is more prevalent than Rio.<\/p>\n

U.S. women\u2019s team goalkeeper Hope Solo said in February that she would not go to the Rio Olympics if she had to choose then, citing worries about Zika. In an interview Tuesday with CNBC, Solo said she would go \u201cbegrudgingly.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m going to take every precaution necessary,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019m not sure I\u2019m even going to be leaving the hotel room, outside of practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

The medical director of Australia\u2019s Olympic team said there was \u201cno chance\u201d the games would be moved. Dr. David Hughes said in a statement Wednesday that the Zika risk to Australian athletes was \u201cminimal,\u201d although he noted only the link to a condition that sometimes causes Guillain-Barre syndrome, a potentially fatal condition that also causes temporary paralysis. He made no mention of the proof the virus causes the birth of permanently brain-damaged babies.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last couple of people that I have spoken to, who have been to Rio in the past month or two, haven\u2019t seen a mosquito,\u201d Hughes said. \u201cI believe we can proceed with confidence, knowing that we have appropriate guidelines and preventative measures in place.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr. Isaac Bogoch, an infectious diseases specialist at the University of Toronto who has studied the anticipated path of the virus, said it is \u201cvery likely\u201d the Olympics could speed up the spread of Zika around the world.<\/p>\n

Still, Bogoch said that since most people traveling to Rio wouldn\u2019t be affected by Zika, it would be an overreaction to move or postpone the games.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spread of Zika to other countries is already happening,\u201d he said. \u201cCanceling the Olympics is not going to prevent that.\u201d<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Associated Press writer Jamey Keaten in Geneva and AP Sports Writer Rob Harris in Mexico City contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LONDON \u2014 With the opening ceremony in Rio de Janeiro less than three months away, a Canadian professor has called for the Olympics to be postponed or moved because of the Zika outbreak, warning the influx of visitors to Brazil will result in the avoidable birth of malformed babies. \u201cBut for the games, would anyone […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":6,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-16367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16367"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=16367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}