WASHINGTON (AFP) - The White House denied that swine flu vaccine was being sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, knocking down reports detainees would get shots in short supply for at-risk people in the United States.

"There is no vaccine in Guantanamo, and there's no vaccine on the way to Guantanamo," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters when asked about the controversy.

The Pentagon sparked criticism last week when it said detainees would be vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus just like US military personnel at the prison on the southeastern tip of Cuba.

"I don't know what the Pentagon said. I know, in asking yesterday, whether or not there was any vaccine there or whether there was any vaccine that was on its way, the answer to both those questions was -- was no," Gibbs said.

Gibbs denied that the White House stepped in to stop a shipment in reaction to the criticism.

The military prison in Guantanamo said it expected doses to be delivered for US troops there and the detainees.

"We're still awaiting the vaccines. We will get the vaccines. They're not on their way. We are expecting to receive the vaccines but we don't know when," Brook DeWalt, spokesman for the Guantanamo Joint Task Force, told AFP after Gibbs made his remarks.

"It will arrive and we will go through the process," she said noting the shots would be "voluntary for the detainees, mandatory for the military."

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters that the vaccine would be distributed according to priority, with doses first going to active duty troops, deployed US contractors and civilians, and then civilians working for the Defense Department.

Detainees would only receive doses after those priority categories were met, he said.

The United States is battling swine flu amid shortages of vaccine, which has caused states and counties to cancel inoculation clinics.

High demand for children's anti-viral medicine prompted federal authorities last week to release its strategic stockpile of liquid Tamiflu.

The H1N1 flu pandemic has already claimed the lives of more children than seasonal flu typically does during an entire flu season, which runs from August until May.

More than 5,700 people have died worldwide since the virus was first discovered in April, with most of the deaths -- 4,175 -- in the western hemisphere, the World Health Organization said Friday.