Australian Health Minister Nicola Roxon said thermal scanners will be turned on to screen international travelers at airports around Australia from Thursday.

In the meantime, all international travelers entering Australian are required to declare their health statement, Roxon said.

As Australian government steps up its defenses against swine flu, from Thursday afternoon the thermal scanners will be turned on progressively in all international airports and they will be fully operational by around 6:00 PM on Thursday night, she said.

These new measures are based on updated suggestions by Australian chief medical officer Jim Bishop who believes "it's necessary to strengthen the identification and management of potentially affected travelers because of the increasing threat from swine flu across the world." Roxon added.

The scanners to be in play at Australia's eight international airports in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, the Gold Coast, Cairns, Adelaide, Perth and Darwin.

"We believe that this is a sensible precautionary measure to betaking and obviously it's a public health issue of great concern, so we do believe that the inconvenience will be worthwhile in helping add to the protection of this country from swine flue." she said.

(Xinhua News Agency April 30, 2009)