People appear to be staying away from doctors' waiting rooms as the swine flu pandemic deepens.
General Practice surgeries in centres such as Christchurch, which has a specialist flu clinic, say they are quieter than usual for this time of year.
The Royal College of GPs says people are heeding advice to telephone the surgery or Healthline for information.
President Jonathan Fox says some busier surgeries are not calling people in for routine work, such as cervical smears, to free-up their capacity for urgent swine flu cases.
Hospitals are also delaying non-urgent surgery, which Dr Fox warns will create bottlenecks in coming months.
NZ death total
The Chief Coroner's office says 14 people have so far died from swine flu in New Zealand and it's waiting for the results of virology tests over a further 11 deaths.
The office has confirmed that among those is an Invercargill electrician, aged 27, whose relatives say was the first otherwise healthy person to have died from swine flu.
The Ministry of Health has confirmed only 11 deaths - all of whom were people with underlying health conditions such as obesity or diabetes.
As of Friday, there were 2585 cases confirmed by laboratory tests, but the actual numbers are believed to be far higher because testing is done only in severe cases.
The World Health Organisation said on Friday it's only a matter of time before the pandemic, which began in March, affects every country.
