The health minister in Newfoundland and Labrador could announce as early as Tuesday which groups will be next in line to receive the swine flu vaccine.

Jerome Kennedy said the province expects to receive another 30,000 doses of the vaccine sometime in the next couple of days.

Kennedy said he has been getting a lot of emails from people who want health officials to focus more of its immunization program on children.

"One of the threads I'm beginning to see in the emails," he said, "is a question as to whether we should be immunizing school children. Well, I've said from Day 1 that that was my No. 1 one priority and it remains my No. 1 priority."

Primary-school children are already getting the shot in school. Kennedy said he expects elementary school children from Grades 4 to 6 to be among those to get it next.

But he said his final decision will rest on the advice of medical experts.

Vaccination against the H1N1 virus that causes swine flu is currently underway in the province for the following groups:

• Children between six months and five years of age.
• Parents or other primary caregivers of infants under six months.
• Parents or other primary caregivers of people up to the age of 24 who cannot be immunized.
• All pregnant women.
• Hospital in-patients less than 65 years of age with one or more chronic health conditions.
• School-age children from kindergarten to Grade 3.
• Individuals aged 25 to 40 with chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma, chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or cystic fibrosis.
• Individuals undergoing active cancer treatment and transplant patients (including pre-transplant patients on a wait list and post-transplant patients in the last two years).