Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Researchers Predict As Few As 15 Zika Cases At Olympics
New research attempting to calculate the risk of the Zika virus at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro may reassure organizers and many of the more than 500,000 athletes and fans expected to travel to the epicentre of the epidemic. Controversy about the global gathering in August has grown as more about the disease becomes known. ... One Sao Paulo-based research group predicted the Rio Olympics would result in no more than 15 Zika infections among the foreign visitors expected to attend the event, according to data reviewed by Reuters. (Steenhuysen, 6/7)
Republicans running to fill Marco Rubio鈥檚 U.S. Senate seat bragged at a dinner in Boca Raton, Florida, last week about opposing red-light traffic cameras and trying to impeach the Internal Revenue Service commissioner. The one thing they didn鈥檛 mention was the Zika virus, which could loom large in the November election. Florida, the ultimate swing state in the race to determine control of the White House and Senate, is on the front lines of the mosquito-borne virus, which has swept through South America and the Caribbean, leaving a trail of birth defects. Zika may still be on the fringes of the state鈥檚 politics, but it could become the sleeper issue of the election. Officials waging war against the virus are already running short of money, even on the edge of Walt Disney鈥檚 Magic Kingdom. (Dennis, 6/7)
Fourteen Ohioans, including one woman from Columbus, have tested positive for the Zika virus, but federal funding aimed at researching and developing could be at least a month away. (Wehrman, 6/8)
According to the Wyoming Department of Health, the Zika Virus should have little to no presence in Wyoming this summer. There have been 618 cases of Zika in the United States reported to the Centers for Disease Control over the past year. (Niemeyer, 6/7)
