RIO DE JANEIRO – Public health officials sought to downplay the risk the mosquito-borne Zika virus poses for spectators and athletes for the Summer Olympics to be hosted here in six months.
The World Health Organization on Monday declared the Zika virus an international public health emergency, following an outbreak of the disease that seemingly originated in Brazil and is now spreading northward across the Americas, including to the United States. The virus, transmitted by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, is suspected to be the culprit in a rising number of recent cases in Brazil of microcephaly, a condition in which infants are born with abnormally small heads.