After two years of shortages, flu vaccine providers are now faced with a glut with only three weeks left in the traditional vaccination season.

Maxim Health Systems, a Columbia-based provider that derives nearly 90 percent of its business from administering flu shots, said it will give about 200,000 fewer vaccinations this year than the 1.7 million it gave in 2001.

"We'll definitely take a hit financially," said Stephen Wright, national director of wellness services at Maxim. He declined to estimate how big the hit would be.

"It's the cost of doing business," Wright said.

"It should be the same with other providers," he said. "We've seen about a 25 percent reduction in the people seeking immunization."

Wright said that although plenty of vaccine is available for shots to be obtained through January, 95 percent of the people who are going to get a flu shot will soon have done so.

"There was more vaccine produced this year than ever before," said Curtis Allen, a spokesman for the Centers for Disease Control and Preventionin Atlanta.

About 93 million doses of vaccine were produced in 2002, a 7 percent increase from the 87.7 million doses produced in 2001.

Manufacturers such as pharmaceutical giant Aventis Pasteur Inc. of Swiftwater, Pa., which sold 44 million doses of vaccine this year, are looking to give away the excess.

"We still have a considerable amount of vaccine left unsold," said company spokesman Len Lavenda.

"We don't have a good read on why there is an excess supply," said Lavenda, who said Aventis uses the previous year's order as a base rate, then factors in CDC recommendations and American Association of Pediatrics advisories as production indicators.

Doug Petkus, a spokesman for Wyeth Pharmaceuticals, said his company also has unsold doses. "We manufactured 20 million, sold 14, and have six unsold," he said.

Wyeth recently announced that it will no longer produce injectable flu vaccine, leaving the industry with just two producers, Aventis and Evans Vaccines, a subsidiary of Powderject Pharmaceuticals PLC, based in the United Kingdom.

Fran Lessans, owner of Baltimore-based Passport Health Inc., an immunization provider, said one of the reasons that more people have not received the vaccine this year is that media attention during the beginning of flu shot season was focused on the Washington-area sniper shootings, the midterm elections and the looming conflict with Iraq.

"It's not a sexy story this year," Maxim's Wright said, referring to media coverage of flu immunization.

Lessans and Wright also noted that since cold weather was somewhat late arriving this year, many Americans forgot that the flu season was right around the corner.

Lessans said Passport does not appear to be suffering as much from an excess of flu vaccine, mostly because flu shots make up less than a third of its business.

"We'll do about the same [number of vaccinations] as last year," Lessans said, noting that her Baltimore headquarters has about 1,000 flu immunization doses remaining.

Passport, which has 45 franchise territories and 80 locations nationally, had no estimates of its total doses remaining.

Last year, industry manufacturers stopped accepting returns of flu vaccine.

"Now we're stuck with extra vaccine," Wright said.

Buyers have seen flu vaccine prices rise nearly 300 percent over the past three years, with the price of a 10-dose vial now nearly $70. In 2000, the price was in the mid-$20 range, Wright said.

The price increase and the fact that they can't return unused vaccine may force doctors to reconsider their flu vaccine inventories in the future.

"Any doctor with an eye on the bottom line isn't going to carry the flu [vaccine]," Lessans said.

"Insurance companies reimburse very low on the cost of the vaccine; there's no money in it," she said.