The 150 experts including a former White House science adviser issued an open letter to the UN health agency, calling for the games to be delayed or relocated “in the name of public health”.

The authors noted that despite increased efforts to wipe out the mosquitoes that spread Zika, cases in Rio have gone up rather than down.

Several public health academics have previously warned that having hundreds of thousands of people head to the Aug. 5-21 games in Brazil will inevitably speed up the virus’s global spread. (The Hindu)