Flu shots, suspended Sunday after four people died this week and last week shortly after receiving the inoculations, may resume on Monday, Health Minister Yacov Ben-Yizri said.

But there were signs mid-morning on Monday that ministry officials might take longer than expected to order a resumption of vaccinations. They had first said that the order might come as early as 10 A.M. on Monday, but later indicated that they were waiting for additional information, including the results of an autopsy performed on the last person to have died following a vaccination.

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Professor Manfred Green, head of the Health Ministry's center for disease control, said Monday that his office had concluded that there was no connection between the four deaths, and that a final determination would be made after information was received from the French manufacturer of the vaccine.

A later Army Radio report said, however, that there was a slight chance of a connection.

Green told the radio early Monday that he would have no problem being vaccinated himself with the flu vaccine, even if it came from the same batch as the four who died on Sunday.

Three of the four died after the shots were vaccinated at the Leumit Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) in Kiryat Gat. All three suffered from several chronic ailments, including heart disease and diabetes.

The fourth recipient, a 67-year-old man, was insured at the Meuhedet HMO in Petah Tikva and suffered from serious heart disease. He was given the shot on Thursday by his wife, a dentist. A few hours later he was found dead on a city street.

The four persons who died are Shimon Amar, 76, from Kiryat Gat; Yitzhak Azoulay, 68, Kiryat Gat; Nadav Yerushalmi, 53, Moshav Shekef; and Ziggo Kalenstein, 67, of Petah Tikva. The Health Ministry said Sunday that all four were inoculated with vaccine from the same series and purchased from the same manufacturer, the French pharmaceutical firm Sanofi-Aventis, which markets the vaccine all over the world.

Ben-Yizri said Sunday the ministry had asked Sanofi-Aventis whether unexplained fatalities had been reported in any other country.

The shots were being given last week only to patients at high risk from heart, lung or respiratory disease, high blood pressure, cancer or AIDS.

The decision to call a halt to the inoculations was made by Ben-Yizri and ministry heads Sunday afternoon, after the Kiryat Gat HMO reported the three deaths.

Two of the three were inoculated last Sunday. One died a day later, and the second over the weekend. The third person was inoculated on Monday and died three days later.

The report of the fourth death came while Ben-Yizri was giving a press conference, a few minutes after he told reporters "no connection has been found between the tragedy and the flu inoculations."

The three men from Kiryat Gat who died had all been inoculated in previous years.

The Health Ministry has started an investigation into possible sources of contamination but so far none has been found in the vaccine; some 140,000 people were inoculated over the last week. The Health Ministry also investigated the medical team at the Kiryat Gat clinic. THe shots were administered to all three Kiryat Gat recipients by the same nurse.

The Health Ministry said it would open a hot-line jointly with the HMOs Monday, from noon until 2 P.M., to calm the public by answering questions about inoculations.

The vaccines were supplied to the clinic after the Health Ministry conducted its usual standards and quality tests.

The ministry said anyone who received a flu shot and felt unwell should see his or her family doctor.

A total of 1.2 million vaccine doses were purchased ahead of this year's winter flu season, to combat the five strains of flu against which the World Health Organization and the Health Ministry recommends inoculation: A, B, Caledonian, Wisconsin and Malaysian. Only about a 10th of all inoculations needed by the public are available at present because of delays in growing the virus cultures by the two major vaccine manufacturers in the U.S. and France. The Health Ministry therefore recommends the shots first be given to those whose chronic diseases put them at high risk of complications from the flu, first and foremost the elderly and the chronically ill