(ATR) A joint US-Brazil research effort to scientifically determine if the Zika virus is the cause of severe birth defects in the South American country is under way.
Multiple media outlets are reporting that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has sent a 16-member team to work with their Brazilian counterparts in the northeastern city of João Pessoa. That part of Brazil has been hardest hit by the Zika outbreak.
The study is designed to determine whether Brazilian researchers are correct in their belief that the Zika virus is causing babies to be born with microcephaly.
The Zika outbreak doesn’t appear to be keeping Olympic athletes from going about their business ahead of the Rio Games in August.
Divers competing at a test event at Rio’s Maria Lenk Aquatics Center over the weekend told Around the Rings that they have changed their mosquito repellent habits but not their outlooks.
"I think when we boarded the plane we got a series of emails before preparing ourselves to get bug spray and applying it twice a day," American David Boudia said to ATR. "I don’t think anyone on the US team, at least diving wise, is afraid of what Zika is right now because we don’t know a lot."
Fellow synchronized diver Alicia Blagg of Great Britain said to ATR that the virus is "not our main concern," in Rio. Her partner Rebecca Gallantree added "We’re just focusing on the diving."
IOC president Thomas Bach, speaking with ATR in Lillehammer at the Youth Olympic Games, says he received positive news from the director general of the World Health Organization regarding the Zika virus last week. Bach says Dr. Margaret Chan is travelling to Brazil on Monday Feb. 22 "to address this issue."
Given the encouraging opinions of experts around the world, Bach said, "So also in this respect, our confidence is really firm."
Chan’s colleague Bruce Aylward, WHO executive director for outbreaks and health emergencies, said at a news conference on Feb. 19 "Brazil is going to have a fantastic Olympics and it's going to be a successful Olympics and the world is going to go there."
Written by Gerard Farek
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