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PILOTS on all international flights into Australia must now identify any of their passengers showing flu symptoms.
Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon has outlined Australia's updated response the worldwide outbreak of swine flu, saying it "can be in place by late this afternoon''.
Additional clinical treatment areas will be opened at airports but it was unclear when they would be available.
Four million health declaration cards will be distributed to airports around the country but a decision will be made later on whether they will be given to all inbound passengers.
Arrangements are also in place to deploy thermal scanners to eight of Australia's international airports.
"They are in transit to airports today and all arrangements are in place for AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service) to be standing by to receive that equipment and to use it if that becomes necessary,'' Ms Roxon said.
Ms Roxon said the number of Australians aboard a flight from Mexico to New Zealand with three schoolchildren who contracted the swine flu has been revised down to 15 from 22.
Of those Australians, only two showed any flu-like symptoms but had been cleared by their doctor.
"The reason this number is different is that the authorities couldn't ascertain from the names provided by the New Zealand authorities which were families and which were individuals," she said.
The Australian passengers included four people from NSW, three from Victoria, one from South Australia and seven Queenslanders.
"Two of the passengers in Queensland were showing some flu symptoms but have subsequently been cleared by their GP,'' Ms Roxon said.
"My advice is none of the other passengers that have been contacted so far are showing any flu symptoms but obviously this process is ... still ongoing and a number of people are receiving anti-virals as a precautionary measure.''
Ms Roxon said there were no confirmed cases of swine flu in Australia.
The Government had taken additional steps to make swine flu a quarantinable disease, Ms Roxon said.
Worldwide, the swine flu crisis deepened with the death toll now above 150 in Mexico and at least 16 countries reporting confirmed or suspected infections.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) warned meanwhile that the virus is now too "widespread to make containment a feasible" strategy.
Mexico, epicentre of the outbreak, said 159 people were now believed to have died from swine flu with more than 1600 people suspected to be carrying the virus. Twenty of the deaths have been confirmed by laboratory tests. WHO says its has only confirmed seven swine flu deaths.
The number of confirmed cases in the United States more than doubled to 65 and Britain and Spain both said they had registered patients sick with swine flu, the first cases in Europe.
Canada has 13 cases and Israel and New Zealand confirmed their first swine flu casualties.
While countries tightened borders, the WHO said research since the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak in 2003 in Asia had shown that border controls were of little use halting the spread of such a virus.
"Border controls do not work. Screening doesn't work," WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said in Geneva.
"If a person has been exposed or infected... the person might not be symptomatic at the airport," he said. "We learn as we go on. SARS was a huge learning experience for all of us."
WHO assistant general secretary Keiji Fukuda warned the virus would be impossible to contain.
"I think that in this age of global travel where people move around in airplanes so quickly, there is no region to which this virus could not spread," said Mr Fukuda.
The WHO has upgraded its pandemic threat level to four, which is two steps short of declaring a full-blown pandemic. A phase four alert means human-to-human transmission is causing outbreaks in at least one country.
Symptoms of swine flu are similar to regular human flu and include fever, cough, sore throat, body aches, headache, chills and fatigue. In some cases people can experience diarrhoea and vomiting. Pneumonia and respiratory failure have been reported with swine flu infection in people.
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