NEW YORK, NY July 11, 2006 —The city's new disaster plan for pandemic flu is winning praise from experts, but they still have some concerns for how health officials might address a worst-case scenario. WNYC's Fred Mogul has more.

There has not been a flu pandemic in almost 40 years, but the city - like the state and federal government is trying to be prepared. The 250-page plan assumes there will be limited supplies of medications such as Tamiflu and that a vaccine would take months to develop.

The health department's role would be to keep the public informed, dispense drugs and vaccines as they become available, and coordinate treatment efforts by public and private hospitals. It is the hospitals that would bear the brunt of a pandemic, and one observer says they need to do a better job at tracking their available space. The city and the region's main hospital trade group say there would be enough beds to treat the severely ill - as long as the less sick can be treated at home with visiting nurses and various elective procedures are postponed.

Dr. Irwin Redlener, from the National Center for Disaster Preparedness, says those are good ideas, but he's still not convinced hospitals have the resources to handle the potential volume of people needing acute care.