Olympic games in Rio : the athletes have not been infected with Zika

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Published the 09.10.2017 at 13: 27

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In early 2016, the virus Zika drove the planet. Health authorities, sports and delegations expressed concern about the holding of the Olympic Games in Rio, while the epidemic was raging in Brazil. The delegation of south korea had asked its athletes to wear long clothing and impregnated with repellents for training. Others had distributed condoms to prevent the contamination of sexual. It was a bit of panic.

But in the end, Zika seems to have spared the athletes and their coaches. Deductions made on a sample revealed no contamination by the virus Zika. On the other hand, a few cases of chikungunya fever, dengue fever, but especially of west Nile virus has been detected.

Severe in 6% of cases

“Everyone is focused on Zika, ignoring the fact that mosquito bites can cause other infections,” says Krow Ampofo, a specialist in infectious diseases at the university of Utah. We were not expecting to find much “.

With his team, he recovered the blood results of 457 athletes, who were taken after their return from Brazil. Among them, 32 were infected (7 % of the total), including 27 by the west Nile virus. Three more were infected with the chikungunya virus, and two had dengue fever. But no trace of Zika has not been identified.