HONG KONG, May 17 (Reuters) - Hong Kong confirmed on Sunday its third case of the new H1N1 flu virus and said it wanted to trace potentially more than 100 passengers who had sat near the infected man on a flight from the United States.

"He arrived at around 7 p.m. (Hong Kong time) in the evening yesterday (May 16) and was sent straight to hospital," said Thomas Tsang, controller of the Centre for Health Protection.

Tsang said the infected man was picked up by airport temperature scanners and had also declared that he had flu symptoms on arrival.

Potentially more than 100 passengers sat in the three rows in front and behind the 23-year-old university student, who lives in China's Guangdong province, on flight CX 831 from New York, and Tsang urged them to contact the government hotline.

Hong Kong confirmed its second case of H1N1 flu on Wednesday involving a 24-year-old man on a flight from San Francisco to Hong Kong [ID:nT260505].

The territory's first confirmed H1N1 case, which involved a Mexican man, was reported on May 1, leading to the quarantine of a downtown hotel where he had stayed.

Authorities in Hong Kong have since revised their flu containment strategies, saying for future cases involving an infected hotel guest only certain floors would be quarantined. (For more Reuters stories on swine flu, click on [nFLU])

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