MONROE - Louisiana's shipment of smallpox vaccines will arrive later this month and will be offered first to about 600 state Department of Health and Hospitals' personnel and then to emergency medical personnel from hospitals around the state.

But even though Louisiana has asked for an allotment of 15,000 to

20,000 vaccines, no one is sure how many people

will actually volunteer to be inoculated.

"It's a controversial issue," said Coletta Barrett, vice president of policy and development research for the Louisiana Hospital Association. "People are wondering whether or not the benefits outweigh the risks."

Experts estimate that the vaccine will kill one or two out of every million

people vaccinated for the first time and that 15 will suffer life-threatening side effects.

President Bush ordered the vaccination plans because of concern those hostile nations and possibly terrorist groups have the virus and could unleash it in an act of bioterrorism.

Bob Johannessen of the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals said after his department's workers are inoculated, those workers will deliver vaccines to up to 20,000 public health and hospital emergency room personnel.

There will be 10 sites throughout the state at health units where those vaccinations will take place, including one in Monroe.

"We do mass inoculations on a regular basis, although we haven't given the smallpox vaccine for 30 years," Johannessen said.

He said the state hasn't set all of the details of the first phase of the program, which begins Jan. 24, but they will be announced within two weeks.

The Louisiana Hospital Association has taken no position on the program.

"There is a belief by some that this is a political agenda instead of a public health agenda," Barrett said. "It's not an easy decision, because we're working on a pre-event model. So far, no case of smallpox has been diagnosed. In a post-event model, of course, many of these questions would go out the window."

Johannessen said the timeline for the second and third phases of the program hasn't been set.

In phase two, first responders, such as firefighters, police and ambulance emergency medical service personnel will be offered the vaccines, and in the final phase the vaccine will be made available to the general public.

The White House has said the general public probably won't be offered the vaccine until 2004.