The Kitasato Institute and three other Japanese drugmakers started shipping vaccines to fight the new strain of influenza Friday, the four said.
The four plan to make enough vaccine for the H1N1 strain of influenza A to treat 27 million people by the end of March. The vaccine requires that each person be inoculated twice.
Since that won't be enough to inoculate everyone, the government plans to prioritize distribution of the vaccines, starting with health care workers, pregnant women, people with underlying conditions, people between age 1 and 8, and parents of babies under the age of 1.
The initial shipment, for 590,000 people, will be distributed Oct. 19 to doctors and other medical professionals to prevent the new flu from paralyzing medical services.