SYDNEY, Jan. 10 (Xinhua) -- A girl and an elderly woman have been bitten by a shark in Australia's Whitsundays on Thursday morning, the latest in a spate of attacks for the popular tourist region.

The pair were swimming in shallow water at Catseye Beach on Hamilton Island when the attack occurred.

The older woman sustained injuries to her thigh while the girl was bitten on the foot, with both receiving minor medical treatment for non-life threatening wounds.

Last year a man was killed by a shark while swimming in the Whitsundays Cid Harbour, the same location where earlier in the year when a woman and a girl suffered serious bite wounds within 24 hours of each other which prompted the killing of several sharks in the area.

While there has been a spike in the number of attacks in the region, experts said that contact between sharks and humans remains rare.

"Attacks are extremely rare in the Whitsundays," shark researcher Samantha Munroe told the AAP.

"There has been an increase in attacks in the past several decades, but globally and nationally this increase is consistent with increases in our population and the number of people who visit the beach to swim, or snorkel or surf."