Three pregnant women in Florida have tested positive for the Zika virus after travelling to affected countries, health officials have revealed.
Florida's Secretary of Health Dr John Armstrong announced the cases in a daily Zika update and said all three are believed to be travel related.
However, officials would not reveal the countries where the pregnant women had travelled to.
Zika is rapidly spreading through Latin America by mosquitoes, and scientists are studying the virus' possible connection to babies born with unusually small heads
Zika is rapidly spreading through Latin America by mosquitoes, and scientists are studying the virus' possible connection to babies born with unusually small heads.
The birth defect called microcephaly can signal underlying brain damage and a total of 32 cases have now been reported in Florida.
Miami-Dade County leads the state with 11 reported cases and so far all have been travel-related, but the virus can be spread by bites from mosquitoes that are common in Florida.
It comes as health officials revealed earlier in the week they were investigating 14 possible new cases of sexually transmitted Zika virus.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said it is looking into the suspected cases.
In two of the reported cases, the infection has been confirmed in women whose only known risk factor was sexual contact with an ill male partner.
A three-month-old baby cries after being diagnosed with microcephaly, a birth defect linked to the Zika Virus
The World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak in the Americas an international public health emergency, on February 1
In both cases the male partner had recently traveled to an area where the Zika virus is present, the agency said.
The CDC said they are still waiting for testing to be completed on the male partners.
The World Health Organization declared the Zika outbreak in the Americas an international public health emergency, on February 1.
It came amid mounting concerns over a link between the virus and the severe birth defect, microcephaly - where babies are born with smaller than usual heads, and often brain damage.
Brazil has confirmed 500 cases of microcephaly linked to Zika, and scientists from across the world are working to understand the, as yet unproven, link, with evidence expected by May.
Sexual transmission of the Zika virus, though known, is rare.
The first case reported during this outbreak was recorded in Dallas County, Texas at the beginning of the month.
The CDC today said mosquito bites remain the primary way the virus is spread but there is no vaccine or treatment for Zika, which has caused outbreaks in at least 26 countries in the Americ
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