Vaccine for the swine flu virus will be available to the general public for the first time today.

The vaccine clinic will be held today at the Eastern Michigan University Convocation Center, 799 N. Hewitt Road in Ypsilanti running 1 - 7 p.m., or until the last person with a wristband is served.

Several hundred wristbands were distributed yesterday and will be distributed again today starting at 12 p.m. to those who are interested in receiving one of the estimated 2,500 doses expected to be available.

Officials say they were trying to avoid having any long waits in the cold weather.

Officials said they've determined those in the highest priority groups have had sufficient opportunity to get the H1N1 vaccine. Previously, the county has only distributed the vaccine to people determined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to be at high risk.

Earlier this week, the state announced the H1N1 flu vaccine would be available to all Michigan residents by next Monday since demand had dropped among those in the priority groups.

Those in the high-risk groups are still strongly encouraged to get the vaccine. Those groups include:

• Pregnant women.

• Health workers.

• People 6 months to 24 years old.

• Contacts and caregivers for children under 6 months old.

• People 25-64 who have higher risks of complications because of other health problems.

Tina Reed covers health and the environment for AnnArbor.com. You can reach her at tinareed@annarbor.com, call her at 734-623-2535 or find her on Twitter @TreedinAA.