Researchers will monitor Zika virus exposure in a group of athletes, coaches and U.S. Olympic Committee staff at the Rio Olympics thanks to a grant from the National Institutes of Health.
Dr. Carrie L. Byington, who also chairs the USOC’s infectious disease advisory group, will lead a team examining how long the virus remains in the body and identifying factors that affect the infection.
“Zika virus infection poses many unknown risks, especially to those of reproductive age,” said Catherine Y. Spong, acting director of the NIH’s Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.