Most Americans wrongly think Zika is deadly

The Zika virus is a serious health issue -- but it's not the killer that many Americans believe it to be, finds a new survey from the University of Pennsylvania's Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Forty-two percent of Americans said it was very or somewhat likely that people with the Zika virus will die from it, the survey found.

But according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most of those with the infection don't even get sick enough from Zika to go to the hospital -- 8 in 10 don't even have symptoms. Death is very rare.

Why does this information gap matter?

"It's critical that public understand that it's possible to have and as a result to transmit the virus while showing no symptoms," said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Center, in a press release.  "Health officials and the media need to more clearly communicate that fact."
 
The Annenberg Science Knowledge (ASK) survey is the fourth in its series on the Zika virus, conducted by phone March 2-7. It has a margin of error of ±3.7 percent.
 
Zika, most prevalent in Latin America, is associated with microcephaly, a birth defect in which babies are born with unusually small heads, which is why pregnant women are advised to avoid areas with Zika.

More survey findings:

51 percent of Americans worry that Zika will spread to their neighborhoods, though no cases have been spread via mosquito in the continental United States, according to the CDC. As has been the case around the country, cases in the Philadelphia area have been connected with travel to places where the virus is prevalent.

44 percent of respondents think the mosquito that carries Zika is found throughout the U.S., though the Aedes mosquito, though it's mainly in the southeast and Hawaii. Indeed, it has been a very long time since it wreaked havoc in the Philadelphia area.

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