Earlier quoted context omitted.
Source? The WHO information about it doesn't sounds like it has to feel all that bad http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/zika/en/ People with Zika virus disease can have symptoms that can include mild fever, skin rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, malaise or headache. […] Treatment Zika virus disease is usually relatively mild and requires no specific treatment. People sick with Zika virus should get…
Just replying to one for all of the above: Zika symptoms has nothing to do with Dengue, it's really awful, the person cannot even walk right, the person stays bad in bed then they get better slowly, it's a lot different from Dengue, but also depends because there's a type 3 of Dengue which is almost the same as Zika.
* Most people infected with Zika virus won’t even know they have the disease because they won’t have symptoms.
* The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a week.
* People usually don’t get sick enough to go to the hospital
You believe your friends had Zika. bit they may not have. Given the Zika epidemic, I wouldn't be surprised if lots of sick people assumed they had Zika but in fact had something else. And, even if they had Zika, your anecdote does not trump what the CDC and WHO tell us.