Dr. Denis Allard, a N.B. medical officer of health, told a news conference on Thursday that the order of who will get the vaccine first will be decided nationally by September. He said all New Brunswick residents will have access to the vaccine. (Chuck Stoody/Canadian Press)

New Brunswick public health officials say they expect to provide enough swine flu vaccine for everyone in the province when flu season arrives.

Dr. Denis Allard, a medical officer of health, told a news conference Thursday that the priority order, deciding who will get the vaccine first, will be set nationally by September.

He said people without family doctors will get the vaccine along with everyone else.

"We will certainly make sure that we take care of [them] through the organization of clinics, that these folks do have similar access as anyone else," Allard said.

"It's not clear yet that it will go with the family physicians anyway in terms of the pandemic flu shots. It could well be that they'll be more public clinics."

New Brunswick has 94 confirmed cases of swine flu.

Province will stop updating swine flu list

However, the province will stop updating that list because doctors are no longer testing patients with mild symptoms.

The World Health Organization said recently there are so many new swine flu cases that governments should stop tallying the number of H1N1 patients nationally. The Public Health Agency of Canada also stated that the focus will be on monitoring severe illnesses and measuring the community spread of H1N1, rather than individual cases.

In New Brunswick testing will continue, but the department will only update the situation for severe cases, deaths and outbreaks.

Dr. Paul Van Buynder, deputy medical officer of health, said the medical system is monitoring the virus and will be ready to treat people.

"We can have societal disruption without large numbers of people in our hospitals. It is important for industry, small business and other groups to plan appropriately for high levels of absenteeism," Van Buynder said.

He said they need to "identify critical activity within their organization and make sure they can deal with that if absenteeism gets up to 20 or 25 per cent."