Albertans can expect a spike in the reported number of severe swine flu cases and smaller volumes of mild infections as the province shifts its monitoring efforts toward patients who are hospitalized with the virus, health officials said Friday.

As Ottawa announced it will stop releasing data on individual cases, Alberta Health said it has already directed physicians and laboratories in this province to focus on testing serious respiratory illness.

The provincial Health Department said it has learned what it can about the mild cases of H1N1 influenza and, with limited lab resources, it's now emphasizing monitoring of serious infections and events such as "clusters" of cases.

Alberta has had 1,401 confirmed cases of the virus, including 509 in the Calgary area, and three deaths related to H1N1.

"You will start to see lower numbers of confirmed cases and you'll see the hospitalized cases going up strictly because that's where we'll be focusing our attention," said John Tuckwell, a spokesman for Alberta Health.

"What we need to learn about now is the severe cases and how they will differ from seasonal influenza."

The comments follow the Public Health Agency of Canada's announcement it's boosting surveillance of the overall "extent and severity" of the outbreak, including unusual activity like increased hospitalizations, instead of releasing individual confirmed cases of H1N1.

The new influenza virus, which first emerged in Mexico this spring and has since been declared a global pandemic, has infected more than 10,000 Canadians, killing 45.

Reports this week have suggested international efforts to produce a vaccine against H1N1 have hit a snag and large quantities of the shots may not be available at the start of the fall flu season.

On Friday, Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq said Canada remains on track in its development of a vaccine for the virus.

"We expect that the H1N1 vaccine will be made available by late October, early November and everyone who needs the vaccine will be able to get at least one dose before Christmas," she said.

Aglukkaq said those considered most at risk for contracting the virus will receive it first, and that the list of prioritized recipients will be finalized closer to when the vaccine is ready.

In Alberta, health officials said they have been watching reports of vaccine production problems, but said they are confident of the province's ability to adapt to changing circumstances around immunization programs.

Alberta Health hopes to vaccinate everyone in the province, likely beginning with health workers and those at greatest risk of severe disease from the virus, although the government has not yet drawn up a formal list of priority immunizations.

Experts said it's too early to say what impact vaccine production problems could have on immunization efforts. They did say Canada seems well prepared compared to other parts of the world, noting this country has contracts to produce vaccines and has a strong history of programs.

"Like any new production, there might be glitches," said Dr. Geoff Taylor, director of the University of Alberta's division of infectious diseases.

"It's thought that Canada is reasonably well positioned."

Several clusters of H1N1 were detected at summer camps in Ontario in recent days, causing concern among parents about what to do with their camp-bound children this summer.

In the United States, officials with the Centers for Disease Control said H1N1 has unexpectedly continued to spread easily during the summer, when infection rates from influenza typically slows.

Officials with the agency believe the unusual rate of transmission may be due to the large number of people with no previous immunity to the new virus and warned there could be a significant increase when children return to school.

The World Health Organization said this week that H1N1 influenza is spreading with "unprecedented speed," although Canadian health authorities said they've noticed the first indications the virus was finally slowing down for the summer.