WHO warns Rio Olympic visitors to avoid poor parts of the city

LONDON (AP) – Athletes and visitors heading to the Rio de Janeiro Olympics should avoid poor and overcrowded parts of the city to minimize their chances of catching the Zika virus, The World Health Organization (WHO) said Thursday.

The UN health agency also restated the advice it has been giving for months, warning pregnant women not to travel to Zika-hit areas. It also said that since the mosquito-borne disease can also be spread sexually, pregnant women should abstain from sex or practice safe sex with anyone who has recently returned from areas with outbreaks.

WHO declared the explosive spread of Zika in the Americas to be a global emergency in February and the virus has now been proven to cause a range of severe birth defects, including braindamaged babies born with abnormally small heads and a rare neurological disorder that can cause temporary paralysis and is sometimes fatal.

Earlier this week, a Canadian professor called for the Olympics to be postponed or moved because of the epidemic, arguing that holding the Rio Games would result in the avoidable birth of malformed babies, as well as potentially sparking new outbreaks worldwide.

Speaking Thursday, he said the WHO advice was entirely inadequate.

“WHO has a moral and scientific duty to prevent these games from going ahead as scheduled,” Amir Attaran, a public health specialist at the University of Ottawa, told The Associated Press. He questioned the utility of the advice to “avoid visiting impoverished and overcrowded areas in cities and towns with no piped water and poor sanitation.”

“That’s half of Rio,” Attaran said. “They might as well just tell people not to go.”

WHO convened its independent group of experts to consider the issue of whether the Olympics should be moved or postponed.