High-risk persons may receive H1N1 “swine” flu vaccines at the Covington County Health Department (CCHD) in Andalusia today from 9 a.m. until the department runs out of vaccines, or until 6 p.m., whichever comes first.

The priority groups include young children, pregnant women, caregivers of babies and health care workers, state health officials said Tuesday.

CCHD administrator Ziba Anderson declined to say specifically how many H1N1 flu vaccines were received in the county, but said “we’ve got a pretty good supply.”

The Alabama Department of Public Health announced yesterday it has 55,000 doses available, which means it must be careful to vaccinate those at the highest risk first.

The number of doses sent to each county health department has been allocated based on population. Every county will have at least 100 doses with larger counties receiving doses in the thousands.

A previous batch of 100,000 doses has been sent to 132 health care providers so far, with instructions for doctors to reserve them for people in the priority groups.