Australian athletes will have to be on guard to protect themselves from Zika virus during this year's Rio Olympics.
The Australian team's Chef de Mission Kitty Chiller said on Wednesday the Australian Olympic Committee would be taking measures to protect the athletes.
"The health and wellbeing of all our team members is paramount, especially those females in the team of child bearing age," Chiller said.
"We have a responsibility to ensure that we educate and inform all prospective team members of the potential risks and to put in place whatever mitigating measures we can."
News that makes sense
Your trusted source for staying up-to-date with the world around you. Get free daily news updates and analysis, straight to your inbox.
Chiller said ahtletes would be issued with mosquito repellant when they arrived in Brazil for the August Olympics and would be encouraged to wear long pants and long sleeves as much as possible.
Chiller said the games organisers had committed to doing a sweep of all the sporting venues and the Olympic village to find and destroy any mosquito breeding grounds.
She said the organisers would also sweep each venue each day before competition events.
"We will encourage them to keep the windows and doors closed in the village because there are no fly wire screens on the windows and doors in the village," she said.
A statement fro the ACO said women who were pregnant at the time of the games needed "to consider the risks very carefully before deciding whether to proceed with travel to Brazil".
Yellow fever is also present in Brazil and Chiller said it would be mandatory for all Olympic team members to be vaccinated against it, but there is no vaccine for Zika virus.
In El Salvador, officials have urged women to avoid getting pregnant until 2018 due to Zika.
