Pregnant women and children will get a pass to the front of the line for swine flu vaccine, federal health officials have decreed, while seniors will get low-priority.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines this week for distributing and administering the H1N1 pandemic flu vaccine, giving those who are more likely to develop complications from the virus higher priority to receive the vaccine.

It is stipulated that pregnant women have the highest priority, with children and adults below the age of 24 will be given the next highest priority.

Next in line will be people who suffer from asthma, diabetes, heart disease, immune disorders and other diseases, then people who tend to babies and finally health care workers and emergency responders.

The elderly were omitted from the list because it is believed they may have some natural immunity from exposure to similar viruses before the 1950’s.

“We probably don’t know as much right now about how it will be distributed as we will know in a couple of weeks,” Richmond County Health Director Dr. Tommy Jarrell said. “It’s probably too soon to assume anything, because there’s been no official documentation of how it will work at this time.”

He said he was familiar with the CDC guidelines, and they had been discussed with health officials in the past.

“We do know that we will have a dose of vaccine for every citizen in the state, but it will be shipped out in increments, as it becomes available,” he continued. “My understanding is that it will be shipped to one place in the county, most likely the health department, and distributed from there to hospitals, doctors and even some pharmacies that administer the seasonal flu shots, so you’ll be able to take the shot at your private doctor’s office.”

The Associated Press is reporting that in October, the federal government expects to receive about 120 million doses of the new vaccine.

The report has the government spending about $1 billion on the vaccine thus far.

The supply will be divided among states, and on to the local level, based on their population.

The last time the government mounted a campaign to vaccinate the public against pandemic swine flu in the 1970’s, thousands reported side effects from the shots. Many of those pursued legal recourse, which will not be available to individuals who are vaccinated this time around.

Last month United States Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius signed a document that granted immunity from lawsuits to the makers of the vaccine under provisions from a 2006 public health emergency law.

The document does allow for a compensation fund, if administrators decide to create one.