A pregnant woman has been diagnosed with the Zika virus in Australia, officials said  adding that the disease was acquired overseas.

The Australian government has urged pregnant women to avoid areas where the mosquito-borne Zika virus, suspected of causing a surge in brain-damaged babies in Brazil, is circulating.

“A woman was diagnosed with the disease in South East Queensland yesterday after recently returning from overseas,” Queensland Health said in a statement.

“The woman is pregnant. This is not a locally acquired case of the virus.” It is the third confirmed case of the virus so far in Queensland this year, although one of these cases — a woman who had recently returned from El Salvador, was later found to have contracted the virus in 2015. Scientists suspect that when Zika strikes a pregnant woman it can cause her fetus to develop microcephaly — a condition which causes the baby to be born with an abnormally small head.

China has confirmed its first case of the Zika virus in a man who had recently travelled to South America.

The virus, which is causing international alarm after spreading through much of the Americas, was detected in a 34-year-old man from Ganxian county in the eastern province of Jiangxi, Xinhua said, citing China’s National Health and Family Planning Commission. Chinese health authorities downplayed the risk of the mosquito-borne virus spreading because of the winter cold, the official agency of Chinese government reported.

Hong Kong’s Department of Health said in a statement that the man, who had travelled through the city on his return to China, worked in Dongguan, a bustling manufacturing city in the neighbouring southern province of Guangdong.

Hong Kong’s Port Health Office has stepped up inspections at the airport in response and reinforced training for boundary control inspectors, the statement added.

Health officials in Guangdong urged people to guard against the illness during dengue season, and vowed to step up efforts to ensure early detection, Xinhua said. The dengue season runs during the hot summer months of June to August, studies show.

There is a risk Zika could be spread locally if it was introduced to Hong Kong, the statement said, because Aedes Albopictus mosquitoes, which transmit the virus, live there