are the first of 195 million doses the U.S. government has purchased from five vaccine manufacturers , Butler said . Last week , the Food and Drug Administration licensed the vaccine from four of those companies . Sanofi Pasteur , Novartis and CSL Limited all manufacture flu shots , and MedImmune manufactures the inhalable vaccine . GlaxoSmithkline , which also is producing injectable flu vaccine , still needs to have its vaccine approved by the agency . Health officials report that the new H1N1 flu virus has not changed from what was seen earlier this year , so they are expecting the vaccine to be very effective . In some parts of the country , the vaccine ca n't some soon enough . The deputy director of the CDC 's Influenza Division , Dr. Daniel Jernigan , said 21 states are now reporting widespread flu activity . `` It 's a very strange thing for us to see that amount of influenza at this time of year '' rather than much later in the flu season . Jernigan said there 's been only a small an increase in hospitalizations , mainly among young children and adults . But there has
ATLANTA , Georgia -LRB- CNN -RRB- -- Health officials expect more than 3 million doses of H1N1 flu vaccine to be available in the first week of October . Three flu shot manufacturers were licensed by the FDA last week . `` 3.4 million doses of vaccines will be available , '' said Dr. Jay Butler , who heads the 2009 H1N1 Vaccine Task Force at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention . `` All of that vaccine is the inhalable vaccine , '' he said Friday . That form of vaccine is marketed in the United States as FluMist and is approved only for healthy individuals between the ages of 2 and 49 . Pregnant women are not allowed to get this type of vaccine because it contains a live virus . Butler added that he thinks there some flu shots may be available in early October as well , but he had a hard number only for the inhalable vaccine . Flu shots contain an `` inactivated , '' or dead , virus . Take a quiz about the H1N1 flu '' The 3.4 million doses of vaccine that will be shipped at the beginning of October