"At this stage there have been no confirmed cases (of swine flu in Australia),'' she said. Department of Human Services spokesman Bram Alexander said passengers assessed at Melbourne this morning did not require testing because they did not "meet the case definition''. "It was determined that they're OK,'' he said. Mr Alexander said passengers were required to tell airline staff if they felt unwell or were exhibiting flu-like symptoms when they arrived in Australia. It was then decided whether further testing needed to take place. "As long as there are (swine flu) cases in the Americas, this is a requirement that we have in place,'' he said.



Nick McInerney, who arrived in Melbourne today after a three-week film shoot in Mexico, said mask-wearing quarantine officials had escorted two people from QF94, his Qantas flight from Los Angeles. "As far as I know there were two people taken off the plane,'' he said at Melbourne International Airport. Qantas later confirmed a "routine check" but said no one had been removed from the plane.

Mr McInerney said people in Mexico were becoming more fearful as the outbreak grew worse.

"People in Mexico are scared,'' he said.

"They said if I developed any symptoms that I should go see a doctor, that was it.'' Businessman Bob Hendricks, from the US state of Virginia, arrived in Melbourne from Los Angeles this morning after a brief delay in Sydney due to quarantine activity. He said while he had not been affected by swine flu, he would be keeping an eye on the situation in the lead-up to a planned holiday to the Mexican beach resort town of Cancun in June. "I'll be looking to see how things go,'' he said. Channel Nine reporter Christine Ahern, who is holidaying in the Mexican resort town of Cancun, said the anxiety levels of tourists was growing by the day.

"There's worse places to be stranded than Cancun but (swine flu) has a lot of travellers on edge and undecided about what they should do,'' she told Radio 3AW. Ahern said tourists were staying in their resorts and at least one US couple had cut their holiday short following the flu outbreak. Tourists were being given "sketchy and conflicting advice'' but had been told they would not be allowed to board flights out of Mexico if they displayed flu-like symptoms. "I've been talking to a lot of tourists here over the last day or so their anxiety is definitely increasing,'' she said.

Earlier, Victorian Health Minister Daniel Andrews said three Victorian tourists recently returned from north America were tested overnight and cleared of swine flu.

He said the three tourists, who had been travelling in the United States where there have been outbreaks of the killer flu, had flu-like symptoms and took the precautionary step of undergoing tests. Mr Andrews said none of them had the type-A virus, which meant they did not have swine flu. "But the message it getting out there,'' Mr Andrews told ABC Radio. "If you have a travel history and you have flu-like symptoms, go to your GP or emergency department or ring Nurse on Call and get the care that you need and we can take appropriate steps that you need.'' Federal Health Minister Nicola Roxon said five people in NSW suspected of having swine flu have come through the first stage of testing and have been found to have contracted an unidentifiable type A virus.

She says the five people, including children, will need further tests to see if they have swine flu, which has killed 149 people in Mexico and spread to other countries around the globe. "We'll go through the next range of testing to see if it is this particular disease in Mexico,'' Ms Roxon told Channel Nine. "There are many types of flu strains, just in the course of the flu season, and we need to go through the process to rule out what it might be.'' A laboratory in Melbourne also is testing samples of a virus that was picked up by students from a New Zealand college who returned from Mexico last Saturday displaying flu-like symptoms. Ms Roxon said the World Health Organisation (WHO) raised its alert level overnight from level three to level four.

"That means they have made the decision that it is not going to be possible to contain this disease,'' Ms Roxon said. She said Australia has stockpiled around 8.7 million doses of anti-viral drugs Tamiflu and Relenza to combat swine flu, which is believed to be a mutation of swine, avian and human flu. "We would take advice on who you would target in the population first if we moved to a pandemic stage but we need to remember that whilst we are preparing for the worst, at this stage there are no confirmed cases in Australia,'' she said. "We are taking every precaution that we can to make sure that if there are cases in Australia we can act quickly to contain them.'' Earlier, five passengers who were detained with flu symptoms aboard a Qantas flight from Los Angeles to Brisbane were cleared.

A Qantas spokeswoman said quarantine officials removed the passengers from Qantas flight 16 at 6.10am today. "It actually had five passengers who reported ill but they've all been cleared, so there's no issues whatsoever there at all,'' she said. "As I understand it ... they were cleared by AQIS (Australian Quarantine and Inspection Service). "Any passengers or flight crew that have any symptoms report it to AQIS and then AQIS assess them from there.'' No aircrew had reported flu symptoms yet nor would they have to wear surgical masks, she said.

Queensland's chief health officer Jeannette Young said two women, one in her mid-20s and one in her mid-40s, who were taken off the Qantas flight on Tuesday morning had been sent home with Tamiflu medication. It is believed passengers had touched down in Brisbane on a Qantas flight from Los Angeles when a number declared feeling unwell and were escorted off by Queensland Health inspectors. "Under the new practice in place now, passengers identified as showing particular symptoms are escorted from the aircraft first," an airport spokesman said. "This is what happened this morning. I believe it was up to half a dozen." The news comes as the number of Queenslanders tested for swine flu has risen to 14, although no cases have yet been confirmed.

New biosecurity procedures for the screening of airline passengers travelling to Australia from the Americas came into effect at midnight. Authorities have confirmed swine flu cases in the United States, Britain, Canada and Spain as the World Health Organisation (WHO) today upgraded its pandemic alert level from three to four. Loading The decision to upgrade the alert level signalled a "significant increase in risk of a pandemic'', WHO said. with AAP