New York City health officials are urging state lawmakers to pass legislation that would enable licensed pharmacists to administer flu and pneumonia vaccines.

Citing an outbreak of flu this winter, officials said allowing pharmacists to vaccinate patients could increase the number of New Yorkers who get flu shots by 50,000.

State law presently prohibits pharmacists in New York from vaccinating customers, but the practice is standard in most states.

“The more flu shots are available, the more likely people are to get one,” the health department’s assistant commissioner for immunization, Dr. Jane Zucker, said yesterday in a statement. “Pharmacies are a natural place to reach those at high risk.”

For years, pharmacists have lobbied for the ability to administer vaccines, arguing that patients sometimes visit pharmacies more often than they visit their doctors. “The pharmacists have the opportunity to administer, when they see their clientele, usually on a monthly basis or every 60 days,” a pharmacist and consultant to the Pharmacists Society of the State of New York, Selig Corwin, said.

According to city health officials, New York ranks 39th nationwide for flu vaccination and 41st for pneumonia vaccination for adults over 65.

Recently, city lawmakers joined a growing discussion about whether pharmacists should administer vaccines. In January, three City Council members introduced a resolution in support of state legislation, introduced by Assemblywoman Amy Paulin of Westchester and state senators Charles Fuschillo of Long Island and Frank Padavan of Queens, that would let pharmacists give vaccines. Enabling them to administer vaccines would “expand access and opportunities for vaccinations, especially in areas that are traditionally underserved,” the resolution, introduced by Council Members Simcha Felder, Lewis Fidler, and Joel Rivera, reads.

But physician groups have long opposed the concept, citing concerns for patient safety.

“Simply from the standpoint of the health, safety, and welfare of patients, pharmacists have not been trained to administer injections,” the executive vice president of the Medical Society of the State of New York, Rick Abrams, said. Citing the endorsement of pharmacists by city health officials, he added, “we find that problematic.”

Mr. Corwin, of the pharmacist group, rejected the notion that pharmacists lack the training to administer a vaccine. A pharmacy degree includes six years of schooling, he said, and if the law passes, pharmacists would receive additional training to learn how to give an injection. “It’s a matter of having as many qualified people give the flu shot,” he said.

State health officials did not take sides but said the issue could have an impact on how they would mobilize health care professionals in a widespread pandemic. “We have talked about it before. It merits discussion,” a spokeswoman for the state Department of Health, Claudia Hutton, said.