BOSTON – Questions from the public about the flu vaccine shortage have outnumbered any other public health concern in recent years, including the anthrax scares that followed the Sept. 11 terror attacks, the state’s public health commissioner said Monday.

The Department of Public Health has installed 75 new telephone lines with recorded information about the flu vaccine and hired 18 telephone operators to field questions, Commissioner Christine Ferguson said during a legislative hearing of the Joint Committee on Health Care.

“We probably have more concern and interest expressed in this than any other single issue that we’ve faced in quite a few years, including the anthrax,” Ferguson said.

This year, the nation is only getting about half the 100 million flu shots it had expected for the current flu season because one of two primary vaccine suppliers, Chiron Corp., had contamination problems at a British factory.

The United States has no stockpile of vaccine, which have a shelf-life of less than a year. Also, they cannot be mass-produced quickly since they are made from hen eggs and require six months to make.

Massachusetts had ordered 655,000 doses of the vaccine, but will have to make do instead with 429,000 doses. In a normal year, about 1 million people – high risk and healthy – seek flu vaccines.

Earlier this month, Ferguson issued an order limiting vaccination to people in high-risk categories and requiring all health care providers, hospitals, pharmacies and others authorized to prescribe, dispense and administer the flu vaccine to report the number of flu vaccine doses they have in stock.

Ferguson said the state would be issuing plans for distributing the public supply in the next two weeks, to complement the plans for private distribution.

Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, co-chairman of the health care committee, said a country as wealthy and advanced as the United States should not be causing this level of concern among its citizens, and that federal officials must change the way they plan for and purchase vaccines.

“We have too many people die each year in Massachusetts and across the country from what is a preventable situation,” Moore said.