State officials are asking college health centers, businesses and other groups that bought flu vaccine for low-risk individuals to turn over their shots so they can be redirected to those at greatest risk.

		Where to get flu shots A number of sites are offering flu shots today or tomorrow for people who fall into high-risk categories. At the following Eckerd locations flu shots are $20 and pneumonia shots are $35. The clinics accept Medicare Part B, Aetna and Security Blue as primary insurances; no co-pay. Monroeville -- 4111 William Penn Highway, 3 to 7 p.m. today. North Huntingdon -- 8775 Norwin Ave., 3 to 7 p.m. today. Harmony -- 25 Northgate Plaza and Route 19, 3 to 7 p.m. tomorrow. North Huntingdon -- 10 Clay Pike, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., tomorrow. Overbrook -- 2501 Saw Mill Run Blvd., 3 to 7 p.m. tomorrow. Shaler -- 1700 Mount Royal Blvd., 3 to 7 p.m. tomorrow. West Mifflin -- 4927 Homeville Road, 3 to 7 p.m. tomorrow. Other clinic updates: All clinics that had been scheduled by Alle-Kiski Medical Center for this week and next week at senior centers in Avonmore, East Vandergrift, New Kensington and Tarentum have been canceled.

The state isn't holding out great hope that there are many extras, but clearly some exist, said Richard McGarvey, spokesman for the state Department of Health. Last week and over the weekend, fewer than five flu shot providers contacted the department to ask where they could send their vaccine.

"We'll take that vaccine and make sure it gets into the hands of people who are doing high-risk clinics," McGarvey said.

The redistribution is voluntary.

The Hospital & Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania and the Pennsylvania Medical Society joined the state yesterday in appealing to providers who have extra doses. The hospital association and the doctors' group are polling their members to see just how many shots are available.

Last week, British regulators blocked all flu shots produced by Chiron Corp., a California company that makes flu vaccine in a Liverpool plant. Chiron had planned to distribute up to 48 million doses, but the action by the British government left the U.S. with about 54.5 million shots produced by Aventis Pasteur and about 1.1 million doses of an inhalable flu vaccine called FluMist.

The Food and Drug Administration said yesterday that problems at the British plant likely will be used as a "test case" to lobby for better information-sharing with European regulators.

Lester Crawford, the agency's acting commissioner, told reporters that the agency lacked a data-sharing agreement that would have forced its British counterparts to disclose its qualms about contamination at the plant earlier.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says that existing supplies of flu vaccine should be directed to people in eight priority groups, including children 6 to 23 months old and adults 65 and older.

Other priority groups are people 2 to 64 years old with chronic medical conditions; women who will be pregnant during flu season; residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities; children 6 months to 18 years old on chronic aspirin therapy; health care workers with direct patient care and out-of-home caregivers; and household contacts of children younger than 6 months.

Anyone not in a priority group is asked to delay or forgo vaccination.

Allegheny County officials believe the shortage here will be especially bad, so the county Health Department will be vaccinating only four of the priority groups: young children; seniors; people with chronic respiratory diseases such as asthma; and residents of nursing homes and long-term care facilities. The Health Department's clinic opens Monday.

UPMC Health System ordered about 145,000 flu shots from Chiron, and is now left with just 5,000 from Aventis, said Philip Nerti, director of the pharmacy that buys drugs for all UPMC hospitals, doctors, clinics and nursing homes. It's unclear whether UPMC will receive more vaccine from Aventis, Nerti said, so the system is stocking up on antiviral drugs that can prevent flu if taken shortly after symptoms begin.

In the meantime, UPMC providers must send patients out into the flu shot frenzy.

Dr. Jonathan Han, a primary care doctor at UPMC St. Margaret's clinic in New Kensington, said he wrote notes last week for two patients with chronic conditions who wanted to attend public flu shot clinics. One patient was an adolescent with heart problems, while a second was an adult with asthma -- individuals who might appear to others not to meet the CDC's vaccination criteria.

"People in line would probably make them feel bad, and that's not fair either," Han said. "It's not other people's business to know what their health problems are. It's like a Who concert out there -- you're going to trample people to get in."

Other doctors are dismayed at the prospect that those lines at public flu shot clinics include people who aren't at high-risk.

"There's no methodology to make sure that the neighborhood clinics are complying with the guidelines," said Dr. Lee McCormick, a past president of the Pennsylvania Medical Society who practices in Carrick. "I don't know for sure that it's happening. But if you're a betting man, it's a safe bet."

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Retail pharmacies are among the outlets offering shots to the public, and Kelley Gannon, spokeswoman for the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, said her members are careful to screen people seeking vaccine. Rite-Aid stores, for example, have everyone who comes in for a shot complete a form to determine their risk, Gannon said.

"We work very closely with CDC every year on the flu shot, and we worked with them on the revised recommendations," she said. "We very much support them."

As a group, pediatricians' offices are probably faring better than others in the current vaccine shortage, said Dr. Ellen Wald, chief of allergy, immunology and infectious disease at Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh. That's because the Chiron vaccine was not approved for use in children under age 4, so many pediatricians would have ordered from Aventis, anyway.

But the nine offices in Renaissance Family Practice were relying on Chiron. Dr. Richard Bruehlman said the practice had ordered 8,500 doses.

"What we've been trying to do is direct people to the papers to find out where the county Health Department is doing it," Bruehlman said. "People understand the situation we're in, but they're still frantically looking around."

As authorities continued to struggle to cope with the severe vaccine shortage, one expert said early signs point to a less dangerous flu season than last year.

"My guess is we are going to have a lighter year than last year," said Dr. Greg Poland, who predicted last year's staggering flu season. "To date, we don't have any of the indicators that usually portend a bad year."

Poland, director of the Mayo Clinic's vaccine research group and one of the government's vaccine experts, noted that flu outbreaks, thus far, have been small and scattered, the virus hasn't easily jumped from person to person and it has not triggered early spikes in hospitalizations and deaths.