A 17-year-old resident of neighbouring Mohali town tested positive for the influenza A (H1N1) virus and has been admitted to a Chandigarh hospital, health officials said Friday.

According to the officials, this is the first case in Chandigarh where infection spread through close contact. The patient's sister tested positive for the flu. She returned from Singapore last week.

The boy was admitted to an isolated ward in a government hospital here in Sector 32 Wednesday.

'We had sent his throat swab samples to NICD (National Institute of Communicable Disease) in New Delhi and got the report yesterday evening that confirmed the infection,' H.C. Gera, Chandigarh's nodal officer for swine flu, told IANS Friday.

'He had come to the hospital with complaints of high fever, sore throat and a running nose. He is recovering and his condition is stable,' stated Gera.

This is the fifth confirmed case of swine flu in the city.

So far, over a dozen swine flu cases have been reported from Punjab. Most of those infected are students from a school in Jalandhar, 150 km from here, who returned from a trip to NASA in the US.