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RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Olympic sailor Erik Heil floated a novel idea to protect himself from the sewage-infested waters he and other athletes will compete in during next year's games: He'd wear plastic overalls and peel them off when he was safely past the contaminated waters nearest shore.
Heil, 26, was treated at a Berlin hospital for MRSA, a flesh-eating bacteria, shortly after sailing in an Olympic test event in Rio in August. But his strategy to avoid a repeat infection won't limit his risk.
A new round of testing by The Associated Press shows the city's Olympic waterways are as rife with pathogens far offshore as they are nearer land, where raw sewage flows into them from fetid rivers and storm drains. That means there is no dilution factor in the bay or lagoon where events will take place and no less risk to the health of athletes like sailors competing farther from the shore.
"Those virus levels are widespread. It's not just along the shoreline but it's elsewhere in the water, therefore it's going to increase the exposure of the people who come into contact with those waters," said Kristina Mena, an expert in waterborne viruses and an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. "We're talking about an extreme environment, where the pollution is so high that exposure is imminent and the chance of infection very likely."
"None of the venues are fit for swimmers or boaters, she said. Athletes who ingest three teaspoons of water have a 99 percent chance of being infected by viruses."
"Rio won the right to host the Olympics based on a lengthy bid document that promised to clean up the city's scenic waterways by improving sewage sanitation, a pledge that was intended to be one of the event's biggest legacies. Brazilian officials now acknowledge that won't happen"
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/ap-test-rio-olympic-water-badly-polluted-offshore-35522811
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The IOC is worse than FIFA
Heil, 26, was treated at a Berlin hospital for MRSA, a flesh-eating bacteria, shortly after sailing in an Olympic test event in Rio in August. But his strategy to avoid a repeat infection won't limit his risk.
A new round of testing by The Associated Press shows the city's Olympic waterways are as rife with pathogens far offshore as they are nearer land, where raw sewage flows into them from fetid rivers and storm drains. That means there is no dilution factor in the bay or lagoon where events will take place and no less risk to the health of athletes like sailors competing farther from the shore.
"Those virus levels are widespread. It's not just along the shoreline but it's elsewhere in the water, therefore it's going to increase the exposure of the people who come into contact with those waters," said Kristina Mena, an expert in waterborne viruses and an associate professor of public health at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. "We're talking about an extreme environment, where the pollution is so high that exposure is imminent and the chance of infection very likely."
"None of the venues are fit for swimmers or boaters, she said. Athletes who ingest three teaspoons of water have a 99 percent chance of being infected by viruses."
"Rio won the right to host the Olympics based on a lengthy bid document that promised to clean up the city's scenic waterways by improving sewage sanitation, a pledge that was intended to be one of the event's biggest legacies. Brazilian officials now acknowledge that won't happen"
Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory/ap-test-rio-olympic-water-badly-polluted-offshore-35522811
----------------------------
The IOC is worse than FIFA
