Here's Brazil's Plan for a Zika-Free Olympics

Largest outbreak has been in host country to 2016 Summer Games

By Luke Roney, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 25, 2016 7:42 AM CST

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Here's Brazil's Plan for a Zika-Free Olympics — A researcher holds a container with female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes that spread Zika. (AP Photo/Andre Penner)

From polluted waterways to terrible planning, organizers of the 2016 Summer Olympics set to take place in Rio de Janeiro have faced plenty of challenges. The latest: the mosquito-borne Zika virus that has been linked to serious birth defects in newborn babies. Authorities in Brazil—home of the largest-known outbreak of the virus, which has spread through Latin America and the Caribbean—have announced plans to prevent Zika's spread during the games, the BBC reports. Measures include:

Inspections starting four months before the games to wipe out breeding grounds.
Daily mosquito sweeps during the games.
Fumigation on a case-by-case basis.

Also, officials say, August is a cooler, drier month, when mosquitoes are less common. (Read more Zika virus stories.)