(VOVworld) - Brazilian health officials said on Thursday that they have confirmed two cases of transmission of Zika through transfusions of blood from donors who had been infected with the mosquito-borne virus that is spreading rapidly through the Americas.

A technician of Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Fiocruz) inspects an Aedes aegypti mosquito in Recife, Brazil, January 27, 2016(Photo: Reuters)

Marcelo Addas Carvalho, director of the Blood Center at the Sao Paulo state University of Campinas, said genetic testing confirmed that a man who had received a transfusion using blood from a donor with Zika in March 2015 became infected with the virus, although the patient did not develop symptoms. Earlier, the health department of Campinas, an industrial city near Sao Paulo, said a man with gunshot wounds had also become infected with Zika after multiple blood transfusions in April 2015 which included blood from by an infected person. Carvalho said the infection of the wounded man was most probably caused by the transfusion but genetic tests have not yet been conducted to confirm it. He said it was very unlikely the infection was caused by a mosquito bite because the patient was in a hospital intensive care unit for three months.