Park said about 9,000 people who are chronically ill and most at risk for serious complications from the flu have arranged for shots through their doctors since the public clinic system began this month.

"We're scheduling from 800 to 1,000 appointments a day," Park said.

At least 1,400 people statewide had received their shots by midweek, she said. Some of that vaccine was donated by HMSA.

Park said the state remains optimistic that the more than 240,000 doses that have come to Hawai'i this year will cover most of those at highest risk. But she encourages any doctors who are aware of high-risk patients who still want the shot to try to set it up as quickly as possible.

And Park said the CDC also plans to make available additional doses of vaccine that can be purchased by private physicians from manufacturer Aventis Pasteur. She said the plan is to use state health departments nationwide to link the doctors with the distributor.

But she cautioned that the nearly 14,000 adult doses and 3,800 children's doses that could be made available in Hawai'i are not available yet and would be sold to doctors.

"It's not a lot, and they do have to purchase it," she said.

Park said federal officials calculated allocations based on the population of those most in need in each state.

"It's not that they're giving it to us. They're giving the state health departments responsibility for distribution. They would put their orders through us."

She said those doses could be made available to the broader group of at-risk individuals designated by the CDC.

On Friday, Tripler Army Medical Center held its first adult flu shot clinic and gave about 450 shots, according to spokeswoman Margaret Tippy. The military hospital has received about 15,000 doses and estimates there are about 10,000 patients who fall in the medically high-risk category.

Lt. Col. Conrad Belnap, a doctor in the Tripler immunization clinic, said the staff used lessons learned from years past in dealing with large numbers of people seeking shots. Although people showed up at 6:30 a.m. for the 8 a.m. clinic, the lines disappeared when the shots began.

Tippy said Tripler also is vaccinating more than 2,000 health-care workers and 450 deploying troops, with more vaccine reserved for more troops deploying later.

Belnap said studies indicate that "vaccinating the care providers has been more effective than vaccinating the patients."

He said anyone in the high-risk groups was being vaccinated.

George and Dorothy Soares, of Salt Lake, said they get the annual shots because of their age. George is 76, and Dorothy is 78.

They felt confident that the military would get them the vaccine they needed. "I don't want to be laid up," George said.

Bill Elliott, a retired Navy aviator who lives in Wai'anae, got both a flu shot and a tetanus shot. "I was surprised that the line was so short," he said, after all the news of the shortage.

But Elliott said he wasn't too worried about the shots. "I'm reasonably healthy," he said.

Tippy said another clinic will be held from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. tomorrow.

The nationwide flu vaccine shortage was announced Oct. 5 after manufacturer Chiron Corp. acknowledged it would not be able to provide half of the nation's supply of shots, or 46 million doses.