The Guardian view on Zika and the Olympics: keep it in proportion | Editorial

The Zika virus can have grave consequences, but in the Rio winter there will be bigger challenges to address

The Olympic and Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, which begin on 5 August, will be the climax to the kind of summer of sport that is the stuff of fan fantasy. But past experience suggests that, however much they please the enthusiasts, hosting the Olympics is a costly way of disrupting a national economy. They rarely turn a profit, and billions of pounds that might have been spent more productively are absorbed into grand building schemes that often struggle to find a future purpose. Yet for governments, they remain a coveted status symbol, a global affirmation of a country's place in the monied half of the globe. Back in 2009, when Rio's bid won, Brazil was unquestionably prospering. President Lula led a rapidly changing country whose economy was buoyed by high oil prices. Seven years later, on the eve of the games, the economy is in crisis, his successor Dilma Rousseff faces an impeachment trial and the country, and in particular the local Rio economy, is floundering, mired in the Petrobras corruption scandal. These are serious challenges. But none of them appears as immediately threatening as the spread of the Zika virus.

Earlier this month in an open letter to the World Health Organisation, 150 health experts called for the Olympics either to be postponed or moved to another venue. They warned of the risk of athletes and visitors spreading the mosquito-borne virus to poorer countries with inadequate health systems. The spectre of a kind of plague unleashed on Africa and parts of Asia, in areas of the world least equipped to cope, made sacrificing a country's reputation, an $11bn investment, and quite likely the ambitions of a generation of athletes seem like a case at least worth considering. That is wrong.

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