Firefighters in the region's two largest cities will not be responding to medical calls involving the swine flu.

In order to keep them healthy to fight fires, paramedics for the time being will be the sole responders to flu medical calls in Halifax and Moncton.

Often firefighters are the first responders to medical emergencies, however Dave Meldrum witht he Halifax Fire Department says during this flu pandemic, crews will leave flu calls to paramedics.

"For quite some time now Emergency Health Services have set a policy not to ask medical first responders like firefighters to go to calls that involve influenza-like illness," says Meldrum.

"So symptoms that may indicate swine flu for instance."

Paul Maynard, with Emergency Health Services says paramedics can handle things for the time being.

"We're limiting that response to keep those firefighters healthy because we're well aware that they have another job to do which is fighting fires," says Maynard.

"And we dont' want to expose people unneccesarily to H1N1 if we don't have to."

A swine flu vaccination program for Halifax firefighters got underway yesterday.