Motown legend Aretha Franklin on Thursday openly speculated as to whether music icon Prince died from the Zika virus.
The only issue is that the virus rarely kills people.
The cause of death for Prince, 57, remains to be released, but Franklin speculated about the health of Prince during an interview. Prince was found dead in his Minnesota studio on Thursday.
“They are saying [Prince had] flu-like symptoms. I’m wondering if it had anything to do with this Zika virus,” Franklin said while on MSNBC.
The Zika virus causes a mild illness and other small complications such as a rash and joint pain for most people.
“People usually don’t get sick enough to go to the hospital, and they very rarely die of Zika,” according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Zika has spread to more than 40 countries and territories around the world.
The CDC confirmed recently that the virus does cause a birth defect called microcephaly. The CDC is also investigating a potential link to Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which can cause temporary paralysis and in some rare cases death.
Another wrinkle in the Zika theory is that Prince died in Minnesota and the two mosquitoes that spread the Zika virus do not reside in that state. In addition, while the U.S. has more than 350 cases of Zika, almost all are from people who traveled to a country where the virus is spreading via the mosquitoes.
There have been a handful of deaths tied to the virus. Brazil, for instance, which has had more than 1 million cases investigated whether the deaths of three adults were tied to the virus, according to Reuters.
There is no evidence that the virus is spreading in the U.S. via bites from the two breeds of mosquito that spread it: the tiger mosquito and Aedes aegypti.
The CDC and other health agencies worry that could change when summer and mosquito season comes.
