SYDNEY, AUSTRALIA - Australia will introduce airport checks for swine flu and has alerted hospital emergency wards and doctors to be on the lookout for the virus, officials said Monday.

Australian authorities cleared 16 people of carrying the virus that is believed to have killed 103 people in Mexico and were awaiting test results on five more late Monday.

At a meeting of the country's crisis health committee, chief medical officer Jim Bishop ordered strict controls on international flights, particularly those arriving from the Americas.

Health Minister Nicola Roxon said from midnight Tuesday captains of all planes from the Americas must report on the health of passengers before receiving permission to land.

Any passengers with flu-like symptoms would be met by quarantine officers, Roxon said.

In addition, all incoming international flights would have to make an onboard announcement telling passengers to seek immediate medical advice if they felt unwell with flu symptoms.

'Professor Bishop has authorised the new measures in an effort to ensure that people entering Australia are identified if they have influenza and that those people who may later develop symptoms have information on what they should do,' Roxon said.

She said border control staff, hospital emergency wards, doctors and front-line health workers had been given information on how to spot the virus and a telephone hotline had been established for anyone seeking advice.

Roxon said Australia had a stockpile of almost nine million doses of antiviral drugs which could be rolled out at short notice.

'With a situation like this we have to be able to act quickly and Australia is in a very good position to act quickly,' she said.

In New South Wales, 12 people were cleared and five people, including a number of children, were awaiting test results.

Further north in Queensland, four people were cleared of swine flu after displaying symptoms consistent with the illness.

Queensland Health chief health officer Jeanette Young said she believed the virus would reach Australia.

'I think we probably will eventually have a case in Australia because we're part of a global environment and it's so quick to get on a plane,' she told reporters.

Bishop said the public should not panic, noting most swine flu cases discovered outside Mexico had so far proved mild and sufferers had recovered.

'I think it's a case of being vigilant but not alarmed until we work out what the worldwide pattern of this outbreak is,' he told public radio.

'There are no confirmed cases in Australia. Obviously there's the usual seasonal flu going through.'