First confirmed cases of Zika virus in Ireland as two test positive

It was widely thought that Zika could only be transmitted via bites from infected mosquitoes. In a tweet, Dallas health officials said the first person infected had been to Venezuela, but did not detail when and where that person or the second person was diagnosed.

Pregnant women have been a group particularly advised to stay away from mosquitoes with Zika causing microcephaly, or a shrinking of the brain, in infants.

In the latest devalopments two cases of the Zika virus have been confirmed in Australia.

All nine cases have been contracted by people who’ve traveled to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Gizmodo reports that Zika virus transmission by sexual contact was discovered by a team of medical researchers in 2009 during a field study. “Next to abstinence, condoms are the best prevention method against any sexually-transmitted infections”.

The virus is carried by a specific type of mosquito, and doesn’t have a vaccine.

The World Health Organization has declared Zika a global health emergency as it spreads through the Americas.

A woman walks away from her apartment as health workers fumigate the Altos del Cerro neighbourhood against the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne diseases in Soyapango, El Salvador January 21, 2016. But this instance of the disease being transmitted sexually has made health authorities even more concerned.

CDC principal deputy director Anne Schuchat told reporters on January 28 that the federal agency was aware of “one reported case of Zika virus through possible sexual transmission”. Common symptoms of Zika virus infection include fever, rash, joint pain, conjunctivitis (red eyes), photophobia (sensitivity to light), muscle pain or headache.

It said that infection usually results in a mild illness lasting between two and seven days.

Now blood samples of suspected Zika virus cases are tested at the National Public Health Laboratory.