Brazil battles to save Rio Olympics as WHO says it will look again at Zika risk – Telegraph.co.uk

But Amir Attaran, a law and medicine professor at the University of Ottawa, who is among those leading the campaign to postpone or move the Games from Rio, accused the WHO of acting “irresponsibly”.

He is one of the co-authors of an open letter to the WHO signed by 150 international experts, which last week argued the body was rejecting such calls due to its official partnership with the International Olympic Committee.

“The WHO is in a terrible conflict of interest by being partners and advisers to the Olympics, and then having to turn around and assess the risk of the Olympics,” Prof Attaran told the Telegraph. 

“This is not how a regulator is supposed to act: there is not supposed to be a partnership or collaborative arrangement between the regulator and the regulated — never.

“A handful of infected humans travelling from Rio to Lagos, Kinshasa, and Mumbai would be at great risk of seeding new epidemics. All it takes is one traveller.”

Brazilian authorities have insisted the number of Zika cases among Olympic visitors is likely to be in single figures but reassurances have failed to assuage international concern.

Zika virus was first identified in Brazil a year ago, and is a relatively mild illness with flu-like symptoms for most patients. However, it has been linked to microcephaly in newborns when mothers have contracted the virus during their pregnancies, as well as to a rare neurological condition, Guillan-Barré syndrome, which can cause paralysis and death.

The virus has since been registered in 60 countries and the WHO declared it a global health emergency in February.

Brazilian scientists said it would have already been carried from the country during Carnival, when the epidemic was at its peak and there were a million tourists in Rio.