Rio 2016 Olympic collapsing

/ Courtesy of Twitter

By Lee Han-soo

With only four month left before the Olympic Games open in Rio de Janeiro on August 5, an outbreak of swine virus and devastating ticket sales are adding onto Brazil’s problems.

With the Zika virus and high domestic crime not even close to being solved, these problems are becoming a burden for the Brazilian government.

Brazil’s Ministry of Health reported on Mar 29 that there have been 372confirmed reports of the swine flu. The epidemic has already claimed the lives of 55 people and is centered on the southeastern parts of Brazil, where the Olympics are due to take place.

Of the confirmed cases, 260 patients were diagnosed in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s largest city also located in the south-east..

The highly lethal swine virus can infect one in three flu victims.

Although the health ministry announced that they it will carry out a mass vaccination campaign from Apr 30 to May 5, concerns remain.

Additionally, only 50 percent of tickets to the Olympics have been sold so far, according to AFP citing Phil Wilkinson, a spokesman for the Rio 2016 organizing committee.

For the Paralympics, only 12 percent of the tickets have been sold.

“The government is working on a plan to boost sales and one option would be to buy tickets, especially for Paralympics events, and distribute them to local schools,” Brazil’s new sport minister Ricardo Leyser told Folha newspaper.

Adding to these problems is President Dilma Rousseff faces impeachment for alleged corruption.

Mass protests are being held across the country, with Brazilians unsure if Rousseff will even be in office when the Olympics begin.

Leyser told Folha that political unrest had not affected the preparations for the Olympics. But a huge recession has stretched the budget for the international event.

With the Rio Olympics under attack financially, politically and health-wise, many wonder if the problems can be resolved before the opening