Britain’s leading expert on the Zika virus yesterday rejected a call by 150 international academics for this summer’s Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro to be postponed because of the dangers posed by the disease. Professor Jeremy Farrar, head of the Wellcome Trust, said such a move would be disruptive and completely unnecessary.
In an open letter to the World Health Organisation (WHO), released on Friday, the group of academics said the Brazilian strain of Zika virus harmed health in ways that science had not observed before. “An unnecessary risk is posed when 500,000 foreign tourists from all countries attend the Games, potentially acquire that strain, and return home to places where it can become endemic,” they added.
But Farrar, a specialist in tropical medicine, told the Observer yesterday that the risks did not warrant such a drastic course of action. “The numbers travelling to and from Brazil for the Games is likely to account for about 0.25% of world travel,” he said. “That does not pose a sufficient risk of spreading the disease in my view.”
Farrar added that if the Games were halted because of the threat of Zika, other major international events would also face calls for cancellation. These could include the Hajj, which sees around 2 million pilgrims travelling to Saudi Arabia every year. “Halting that would be very difficult,” Farrar said.
Zika disease is caused by a virus that is spread by infected mosquitoes. Symptoms include fever, rash and joint pain. Serious complications can arise for pregnant women, who can give birth to babies with abnormally small heads. For this reason, expectant mothers have already been advised not to travel to Rio.
However, the signatories say the only effective measure for containing Zika is a complete cancellation of the Games – a call that has been rejected by the WHO, which said yesterday that there was “no public health justification” for postponing or cancelling the Rio Olympics because of Zika.
This rejection has led the signatories of the open letter to attack the WHO for having too close a partnership with the International Olympic Committee and for being biased in its actions.
The WHO went into official partnership with the IOC in 2010, in a deal that Professor Amir Attaran, one of the open letter’s authors, described as “beyond the pale”. He added: “It is ignorant and arrogant for the WHO to march hand in hand with the IOC.”
Nevertheless, in the wake of the open letter, many scientists have rejected the signatories’ call for the games to be cancelled. Farrar said: “Mosquitoes in August are not nearly so active in Brazil as at other times of the year. Risks are therefore reduced.” The answer to the Zika emergency was to provide education and advice – particularly about the dangers of the virus’s sexual transmission – and to work to control its mosquito vector.
His views were endorsed by Lancaster University biologist Derek Gatherer. Brazil was affected by many tropical diseases – including malaria and dengue – that were all clinically more serious than Zika, he said. “But none has been proposed as a reason to cancel the event.”
Pregnant women would be best advised to stay away, while people who do attend should use insect repellant and avoid risky sexual behaviour. “If these principles are observed, there is no reason why the Olympics cannot take place,” Gatherer added.
Virologist Jonathan Ball of Nottingham University agreed. “Global travel and trade offer Zika an opportunity to spread. By comparison with these routine activities, the increased risk that the Olympics poses is a drop in the ocean.”
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