Victoria is to get more equine influenza vaccine shots than it was allocated by the federal government, but still far less than requested.

Victorian veterinary officials will begin distributing 4,100 doses of ProteqFlu TE vaccine allocated on Thursday by Agriculture Minister Peter McGauran, who earlier this week said Victoria would get only 1,500 phials of the vaccine, Fairfax newspapers reported.

But the Victorian government had campaigned for 15,000 shots.

Of the 20,000 vaccine shots that arrived in Sydney on Thursday, 7,940 will each be sent to NSW and Queensland, with the rest to go to Victoria.

Another 130,000 shots will arrive in Australia over the next two weeks, and horses will be immune from equine influenza four weeks after the first injection.

Victoria will get a further 3,000 shots from a shipment arriving next week, which Victorian Agriculture Minister Joe Helper said would ensure all horses competing in the spring racing carnival would be inoculated.

Each horse to be inoculated will need two vaccine shots, administered two weeks apart.

A spokesman for Mr McGauran told Fairfax that Victoria received more shots "following consideration of all stakeholder views and a request by the Victorian government".

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