Around 100,000 doses of swine flu vaccines were expected to arrive in Malta late last night.
Health care workers with the government and private sector will be the first to be vaccinated today at the Floriana health centre while the inoculation of vulnerable groups will start on Saturday, the Parliamentary Secretariat for Community Care said.
Pregnant women and chronic patients can visit their local health centre from Saturday to receive the jab. Further details of opening hours will be issued later this week.
The vaccines, which arrived on a flight from Brussels, were immediately taken to the government's medical stores.
Last week, the government announced that the second batch of vaccines was expected in the first quarter of the year to cover the rest of the population, including children between six months and nine years of age and those over 60, both of whom would probably need two doses about four weeks apart.
Vaccination is not compulsory although health authorities are urging people to take the jab. There is the risk that the influenza will become more virulent, making the protection offered by the vaccine even more important.
The majority of those who wish to be vaccinated are expected to take the jab by March. Pandemics like the swine flu do not follow the patterns of seasonal influenza, which tend to hit in colder weather.
Since the swine flu was identified in Malta last June, vulnerable people with flu-like symptoms have been treated with the antiviral drug Tamiflu.
While Tamiflu is a treatment for influenza, the GlaxoSmithKline's H1N1 vaccine Pandremix that arrived yesterday will be given to healthy individuals to protect them from the disease.
People who have already had swine flu do not need to take the jab against the virus, health care director general Ray Busuttil had said.
Anyone whose influenza-like illness was not confirmed in the laboratory is still being encouraged to be inoculated, just in case he or she did not suffer from H1N1.
The health authorities again urged anyone with flu-like symptoms to stay at home to ensure the virus does not spread.
Fourth swine flu death
A 32-year-old man died at the Intensive Care Unit of Mater Dei Hospital from complications caused by the H1N1 flu, yesterday evening, the government said.
The man had been suffering from a condition that could aggravate lung infections, the government added. He is the fourth victim to die in Malta of H1N1, otherwise known as swine flu.