MOSCOW (Sputnik) — According to the CNN/ORC poll, 47 percent of respondents are "not worried at all" about themselves or someone in their family becoming a victim of the Zika virus, while 30 percent said they are "not too worried" about the virus.
The poll was conducted by telephone, with 1,003 adult US citizens interviewed on Friday through Sunday.
The same poll suggests that although 62 percent of those polled are very or somewhat confident that the US federal government can prevent a nationwide epidemic of the Zika virus, more than one fifth, or 22 percent, were not very confident about the matter and 15 percent were not confident at all.
The number of Zika cases on US coil has recently been on the rise. According to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data, there have been 1,658 Zika cases recorded in the country, as of July 27. On July 20, there were 1,404 reported Zika cases, while less than a month ago, on June 29, just 935 Zika cases had been registered throughout all US states.
The current Zika outbreak started in Brazil in the spring of 2015. The virus is transmitted by daytime-active mosquitoes. While the Zika virus does not cause serious complications in adults, it can cause severe brain defects and microcephaly in newborns. To date, there is no known vaccine to treat the Zika virus.
