Scientists want Olympic Games moved or delayed over Zika

World Today

It just over two months away from the 2016 Rio Olympics.

And despite 150 scientists urging the World Health Organization to move or postpone the games over fears of the Zika virus, the WHO has rejected the call. CCTV America’s Lucrecia Franco reports.

Since the mosquito-borne virus outbreak was detected in October last year, Brazil’s Health Ministry more than 1,300 babies have been born with abnormally small heads – a condition doctors call microcephaly – after their mothers were infected with the virus.

In an open letter to the World Health Organization, released last Friday, 150 prominent health experts from over two dozen countries called for the Rio Games to be delayed or relocated, though not canceled, in the “name of public health.”

No Olympics Games have ever been shifted from their host city due to medical issues and according to the WHO, moving them will not have a major impact on the spread of a disease that has surged in an interconnected world.