BALI'S NGURAH RAI AIRPORT ON FULL ALERT AGAINST SWINE FLU

Tuban, Bali Province, April 29 (ANTARA) - Ngurah Rai International Airport, Bali Province, is now on a full alert to prevent swine flu from entering the world-famous resort island.

Any passenger and aircraft crew member coming from a foreign country must pass a thermal scanner to check his or her body temperature, Alex Pujianto, general and human resources manager of the Ngurah Rai unit of PT Angkasa Pura I, said here on Wednesday.

Passengers coming from swine-flu affected countries would go through a special checking procedure, he said.

Airport management company PT Angkasa Pura would soon gather domestic and foreign airline operators operating at Ngurah Rai to inform them about measures to be taken to contain the spread of swine flu, he said.

The airport had set up two thermal scanners and body cleaners to sterilize passengers suspected of having been infected with the swine flu virus.

However, he said there was no direct flight to Ngurah Rai from swine flu-affected countries such as Mexico and the US.

The Indonesian government is taking seven steps to prevent the swine flu virus from breaking out in the country.

One of the steps is installing thermal scanners at international airports, Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said in a circular read out by president director of Hasan Sadikin Hospital, Prof Dr Cissy RS Prawira, to newsmen on Tuesday (April 28).

The other steps include reactivating around 80 sentinels for surveillance on ILI (influenza-like illnesses) and pneumonia both in clinical or virological forms and preparing medicines for overcoming the disease.

In Mexico, swine flu is believed to have killed 149 people while 776 others have been hospitalized, according to Mexican government statistics. The number of infections in the United States rose to 65, Canada has 13, and new cases were also confirmed in Israel and New Zealand.