Brazilian authorities have announced an action plan for preventing the spread of the Zika virus during the Rio de Janeiro Olympic Games later this year. The spread of the virus throughout Latin America and the Caribbean has prompted multiple travel advisories throughout the region and abroad, but so far, Brazil has experienced the worst outbreak.
The outbreak has, in turn, been linked by Brazilian health authorities to a surge in the number of babies born with microencephaly, a neurological condition that causes abnormally small heads and brains, after mothers' exposure to the Zika virus.
In an effort to contain the virus before the Olympics in August, the Brazilian health ministry has announced that Olympic facilities will start being inspected four months prior to the Games in order to clear mosquito breeding grounds, according to BBC News. Inspections will also occur throughout the event, but fumigations will only be performed on a case-by-case basis due to health concerns for athletes, spectators and other participants.
The fact that the Olympics will occur during the cooler, drier month of August means that there will be fewer mosquitoes and considerably fewer instances of mosquito-transmitted viruses, health authorities explained, TeleSUR reported.
Additionally, a genetically modified mosquito has recently been introduced to help control the propagation of the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the species that carries the virus, Reuters noted. Oxitec, a British synthetic biology company, developed a self-limiting subspecies by modifying mosquitoes so that their offspring will die before reaching reproductive maturity. This modification has been used in fighting dengue fever in Brazil, a virus that is also carried by the Aedes mosquito.
There are also concerns about this year's Carnival season in Brazil, when more than 1 million of tourists are expected to visit the country in early February, which is the peak mosquito-breeding season, according to TeleSUR. "I am worried about this large group of susceptible people going to Carnival," said Dr. Eurico Arruda, a professor of virology at the University of São Paulo. "They will be exposed. It is likely the cases (of Zika) will increase."
The Zika virus was first identified in Africa in the 1940s, and it was unknown in the Americas until last year when it was detected in northeastern Brazil. The virus cannot be transferred between infected humans. Adult female mosquitoes pick up the virus up by biting an infected person, and then they pass it on to another person.
