There has been an increase in the number of confirmed cases of H1N1 influenza in Nova Scotia, according to figures provided Wednesday on the Health Department's website.

There have been 377 cases of swine flu this fall, 226 of which were diagnosed in the week ending Oct. 31.

The department said it is now testing only the sickest flu patients for the H1N1 influenza, a virus causing the current swine flu pandemic, so there might be more cases than reported.

Currently, 26 people are being treated in hospital for H1N1 flu, according to the website, and, of those, four are in intensive care. Since April when the pandemic began, 42 people have been hospitalized with swine flu, and one person has died.

"H1N1 is the predominant circulating respiratory virus, no other respiratory viruses were detected during the current surveillance week" of Oct. 25-31, the website said.

Hospitals across the province are also reporting a large jump in the number of people showing up at emergency rooms with flu-like symptoms, according to the department.

Flu-like symptoms seem to be widespread in four of the province's nine health regions: Capital, Southwest Nova, South Shore and Antigonish-Guysborough.

The department said the province is about to get another 13,000 doses of H1N1 vaccine for this week, which will be directed primarily to people with serious chronic illnesses such as diabetes or asthma.

It's too early to say whether the immunization program that started in Nova Scotia last week will make a dent in those numbers, the department said.

Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia's chief medical health officer, said Wednesday officials are still working on who will get the next round of vaccine and how they will get it.

Strang said health officials are still waiting for the federal government to tell them how much vaccine Nova Scotia will get next week before making any decision on expanding the vaccination program. He said they hope to get that information from Ottawa Thursday.

In early June, the province confirmed its first hospitalization of a patient with swine flu. There were 77 documented cases at that time.