Kuwaiti women wear protective masks as they sit in a restaurant inside the Mubarakiya Market in Kuwait City. AFP

The three were identified as Bahraini women who arrived at Bahrain international airport on indirect flights from Iran.

Kuwait announced on Wednesday there were two new coronavirus cases in the country, with the infections occurring among people returning from Iran.

The new cases bring the total number to 11 in Kuwait, according to a statement by the health ministry.

Members of Kuwait's national guard wearing safety masks keep a watch outside a hotel. AFP

The disease is believed to have originated in a market selling wildlife in the Chinese city of Wuhan late last year and has infected about 80,000 people and killed more than 2,700, the vast majority in China.

Adding to a growing sense that a rapid spread of the virus in more places is inevitable, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official urged that preparations be made now.

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In the United States, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also urged Americans to prepare, saying that while the immediate risk there was low, the global situation suggested a pandemic was likely.

"It's not a question of if. It's a question of when and how many people will be infected," the CDC's principal deputy director, Anne Schuchat, said on Tuesday.

The United States has reported 57 cases of the virus.

Dr Bruce Aylward, head of a joint WHO-Chinese mission on the outbreak, told reporters on his return to Geneva that preparations should not wait.

"Think the virus is going to show up tomorrow. If you don't think that way, you're not going to be ready," he said.

Aylward said China's "extraordinary mobilisation" to handle the outbreak showed how an aggressive public health policy, including large quarantines, could curb its spread.