UN bird flu chief sees global battle plan

GENEVA, Monday (Reuters) The senior U.N. coordinator for avian and human influenza, David Nabarro, said he expects health and veterinary officials to draw up a sweeping global battle plan against the disease this week.

A global programme would require investing in veterinary services, boosting human disease surveillance, scientific cooperation on vaccine development as well as negotiations with drug companies on access to existing antivirals, he said.

Speaking on the eve of talks in Geneva on the disease that has killed more than 60 people in Asia, Nabarro also said that as part of the plan, the World Bank would propose setting up a fund to help both countries and agencies respond to the crisis.

Some 400 health and veterinary officials have converged on Geneva for the three-day meeting by international agencies to hammer out a strategy against bird flu and to stop the deadly H5N1 virus triggering a human pandemic that could kill millions. "I think there is a reasonably good chance ... that people will congeal around a set of basic principles and elements for what will become an international programme which can then be presented to the donor community over the next couple of months," Nabarro told Reuters in an interview in his home.

"The actual pledging, I understand, will take place in the new year... That is definitely in the plans," he added.

Jim Adams, the World Bank's chief for operations policy and country services who will make a financial presentation to the talks on Wednesday, has said a trust fund would require initial donations of $300 million to $500 million to help countries set up programmes.

"Whether or not it will be a trust fund has to be decided... The World Bank is describing a flexible set of instruments," Nabarro said.

"We have to establish a system that responds to countries who are requiring assistance and also respond to political imperatives of donor nations. So we get a system that is incredibly responsive and at the same time flexible," he said.