WASHINGTON — U.S. health officials voiced concern Friday that the massive deployment of troops to the Persian Gulf will sharply worsen a nationwide shortage of hepatitis-fighting gamma globulin in doctor's offices, hospitals and public health clinics.

The shortage, which began last summer amid a hepatitis epidemic, intensified after the Pentagon required that troops dispatched to the Middle East be inoculated against possible exposure to the infectious disease.

In addition, large quantities of the antibody-rich blood serum extract have had to be stockpiled in the event war breaks out in the Persian Gulf and the gamma globulin is needed to treat casualties.

Until recently, states were able to alleviate the commercial shortage of gamma globulin by sharing supplies, even though one of two major manufacturers suddenly abandoned the market.

But new alarms went off after President Bush announced Thursday that more than 200,000 additional American troops will be sent to the Middle East.

"There is a sense now that we may have an absolute shortage" of gamma globulin that cannot be cured by shifting supplies around, said Dr. Harold Margolis, chief of the hepatitis branch at the federal Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta.

Officials at the California Department of Health Services sent a memo to counterparts in other states last month, warning of a growing shortage. Noting that "no national guidelines have yet been issued on this matter," the California officials suggested that local health departments plan to reserve gamma globulin for "high-priority uses."

Such high priorities include people recently exposed to hepatitis-A; pregnant women and children under 2 years old recently exposed to measles, and people going on business to high-risk hepatitis areas abroad.

Those traveling on pleasure or vacation should be referred to private doctors "to try to get" gamma globulin shots, said the memo, signed by Drs. George W. Rutherford and Loring Dales, heads of the department's infectious disease and immunization units.

Beverly Hills physician Elsie Giorgi, who every week inoculates six to 10 patients headed for trips abroad, protested that gamma globulin prices had shot up from $10 per two-dose vial to more than $30.

In a telephone interview, Giorgi also expressed the belief that people who need the drug to battle life-threatening immune deficiencies are especially jeopardized by the shortage.