OTTAWA - Canada is investigating possible outbreaks of the swine flu in its aboriginal communities, officials said Thursday, while downplaying concerns that natives were falling more seriously ill than others.

"This is a concern, and we are investigating," Health Minister Leona Aglukkaq told a press conference.

"Since the outbreak of H1N1 began, our government has been working to ensure accurate and timely information gets to First Nations communities," she said.

Additional health staff and protective garments have been sent to several native communities, to review situations and determine how the virus reached the remote centers.

Canadian health officials, however, could not quantify the number of natives infected with the virus.

This week, WHO acting assistant director-general Keiji Fukuda raised concerns over "a disproportionate number of serious cases" occurring in Canada's aboriginal communities.

He said there were "a larger number than expected" cases of young natives who had developed a "serious illness" and "had to get hospitalized."

Canada's public health officer David Butler-Jones, however, downplayed the WHO's fears.

"This is not an indigenous disease," he said. "We know there are certain risk conditions, underlying chronic disease, etcetera, that make (some) at greater risk of disease or death."

But "to make conclusions based on a couple of communities that this is somehow a disease that is worse in among an ethnic group, it's much too early to make those kind of conclusions or presumptions," he said.

"It is a disease that affects everybody and we don't yet have the data to understand why some communities" may be hit harder, he added.