DENPASAR – Authorities in Bali are tightening control over the inflow of tourists, particularly foreign ones, at each of the gates into the Indonesian tourist resort province of Bali, Indonesia’s news agency Antara reported a local health official as saying.

Equipped with thermal scanners installed in ports, officials were seen busy checking tourists arriving at Ngurah Rai airport.

According to Antara the head of Bali’s health service Nyoman Sutedja said the supervision at Bali’s entry gates was tightened following a case where a British national had been confirmed to contract the H1N1 strain of virus.

“The laboratory test indicated that the British national, who had been treated at Sanglah hospital in Denpasar since early this week, was positively a carrier of the virus,” he said.

In this connection, Sutedja said he had instructed his officers to tighten control over the inflow of human visitors to the island of gods.

Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari announced Wednesday that two patients had been positively infected with the Influenza A(H1N1)virus based on laboratory tests.

They were a pilot identified as WA (37) from Jakarta and BM (22), a British national who was visiting Bali.

WA visited Australia on June 14 and Hong Kong on June 18. On June 19, he suffered from fever and went to see a doctor at the Sulianti Saroso hospital in Jakarta where he is currently being treated.

BM arrived in Bali on June 19 and with a health alert card was admitted to the Sanglah Hospital in Bali on June 20.

“The conditions of the two patients are relatively good but they are still isolated in the hospital,” the minister said.

Supari said that the two patients would be allowed to move out of the isolation rooms only after they were declared free from the H1N1, or recovered from the disease.