The 2016 Olympics has been set to be in Rio, Brazil. Kenya is trying to pull their country out of the Olympics. The reason is because of the outbreak of the Zika virus which has been spreading across the nation. Zika virus is a mosquito borne virus from the same family as yellow fever dengue, chikungunya, west nile, and Japanese encephalitis virus. The virus had an outbreak in Brazil and traveling into many countries in Latin America and the Caribbean. Because of this virus it brings up questions about the Olympics. Do countries want to take the chance of letting their people going to Brazil for the Olympics? This could be a health risk for athletes to perform at their best if they are contaminated with the virus. This could be a serious problem because of the virus. It is already 2016 and just a couple months before the Olympics. There is a lot of money already being spent on this event. Every country is getting prepared for the biggest event of the year. Would it be a bad idea to reschedule the Olympics for a different time?
Are countries willing to take that risk? According to ABC News “the head of the World Health Organization’s Zika response team is predicting that Brazil will host a “fantastic Olympics” and that the mosquito-borne virus will be “way down” the time the summer Games begins in Rio de Janeiro on Aug 5”. I’m hoping this Olympics will go fine.
I hope things will go well too. If the WHO is confident, I think we can be.
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