NEW DELHI: International donors have committed more than $400 million to fight bird flu in an encouraging step but more funds are still needed, a top World Bank official said Thursday. The pledges were made on the final day of an international conference on the deadly virus in New Delhi aimed at drawing up ways to tackle the disease. At the start of the conference, the World Bank had projected a need for $1.2 billion over the next two to three years to help countries fight bird flu. The money was needed to give compensation to farmers whose birds are culled, spread awareness about the virus and develop low-cost vaccines. There is still a gap, but this (sum pledged) is more than what we had anticipated, Peter Harrold, acting vice president of the World Bank, said at the end of the conference. More than $406 million have been pledged. It s been a very encouraging response. Experts fear a virus mutation resulting in severe and easily transmitted influenza in humans could create the next pandemic, affecting up to one-fifth of the world s population. The World Bank has said that such a pandemic could cost up to $2 trillion. The cost of the pandemic would be far greater than the cost of mitigation, Harrold said. More than 600 delegates from over 100 countries attended the meeting. The next conference will be held in Egypt in October 2008. The UN System Influenza Coordination said 95 percent of countries were much better equipped to deal with a pandemic than they were a year ago, but the risk of such an event had not declined. Experts stressed the need to shift focus from containment of an outbreak to long-term strategies to deal with a pandemic. Efforts to deal with avian influenza have been of an emergency nature. We are concerned that we move to medium-term capacity, Harrold said. New Delhi proposed a roadmap for 2008, calling upon nations to invest in public health security, implement international health regulations and improve bio-security in the poultry sector. The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 200 people worldwide since late 2003. But the number of human infections and deaths declined this year over last year. Forty-eight people died of the infection in 2007, down from 71 in 2006, according to the WHO, and experts said outbreaks were also being detected more rapidly and responses have become more effective. Twenty-six countries reported flu outbreaks in birds in 2007, of which four -- Bangladesh, Ghana, Saudi Arabia and Togo -- experienced them for the first time.
