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The cases – the first of their kind in the country – are unrelated to each other and both patients are said to be currently well and fully recovered.

Both individuals have a history of travel to a Zika affected country, Ireland's Health Service Executive (HSE) confirmed.

The people involved are a man and an older woman.

Both had travelled to a country affected by the virus, which can cause birth defects, and both have fully recovered from the infection.

"These are the first cases of Zika virus infection confirmed in Ireland," a HSE spokeswoman said.

"Neither case is at risk of pregnancy."

Health chiefs have urged Irish people who fall ill within two weeks after returning from an affected area to seek medical help.

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The annoucement came as the first case was confirmed in the US which was transmitted through sex.

Dallas County Health and Human Services said the case in was acquired through sex, adding that it received confirmation of the infection from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

It comes as the WHO warned last week the virus, spread through mosquitoes, was "spreading explosively" and should be considered a "public health emegency of international concern".

The United Nations (UN) health agency estimates that as many as four million people could be infected with the virus this year.

There are no reports of the virus being locally transmitted by mosquitoes in the Texas county.

And the fact that the virus can be spread through sex raises the nightmare of the disease being passed among humans that do not get bitten by the bugs.

Officals did not identify the person infected. The CDC said it did not investigate how the virus was transmitted.

There have been six confirmed travel-related cases of Zika virus disease, all among residents of Harris County, where Houston is located, the Texas Department of State Health Services said.

In medical literature, there has been only one case of Zika transmitted sexually and one case in which the virus was detected in semen.

The person infected did not travel and acquired the virus from someone who had been to Venezuela, the county health department said on its twitter feed.

It did not provide further information on the Texas infection due to privacy concerns.

Australian officials also confirmed today that a citizen had been affected after being bitten by a monkey in Bali.

The WHO is under pressure to react quickly to the Zika virus, after being criticised for its slow response to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa last year.

Following a meeting of an International Health Regulations Emergency Committee, WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan said: “Members of the committee agree that the situation meets the conditions for a public health emergency of international concern.”

A man in Denmark has tested positive for the mosquito-transmitted virus after travelling to South and Central America, health officials claim.

Last week, it was revealed that three Brits had contracted the disease linked to babies born with shrunken heads.

Brits have been advised to avoid South America while women in the region have been warned not to get pregnant for TWO YEARS to avoid passing on the birth defect as countries struggle to deal with the epidemic.