Beijing - China on Saturday suspended direct flights from Mexico and was trying to trace 11 people who travelled on the same flight as a Mexican man infected with swine flu. China informed Mexico, the country worst hit in the swine-flu outbreak, that it suspended flights by Aeromexico to Shanghai "because of the continuing spread of the current A/H1N1 influenza epidemic and the discovery of a confirmed case of the same influenza on board a flight from Mexico to China," the Foreign Affairs Ministry said.

The government was considering arranging a charter flight to collect Chinese passengers in Mexico who were booked on the first cancelled flight to Shanghai on Sunday, the ministry said in a statement.

A 25-year-old Mexican was confirmed to be infected with the virus after he took a second flight from Shanghai to Hong Kong.

Health authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong, which borders Hong Kong, are trying to trace 11 of the 41 local people who arrived in Shanghai on the same flight from Mexico as the infected man, state media said.

The health officials had contacted 30 of the 41 passengers and placed them under a seven-day quarantine, the official Xinhua news agency said.

The Mexican man is the first person confirmed with the swine-flu virus in Asia.

Hong Kong authorities are also trying to trace passengers who travelled with him on a China Eastern flight to Hong Kong from Shanghai on Thursday.

The reports did not say how many other passengers had travelled on the same flight from Mexico City to Shanghai.(dpa)