Asia needs about $100 million in the next three years to fight avian flu as the virus looks set to stay, but only about a third of that has been pledged, health and livestock experts said. They said more money was needed to help chronically-infected Vietnam, turn Chinese farmers away from unauthorised anti-viral drugs and vaccinate ducks that were proving to be hardy carriers of the deadly H5N1 bird flu strain.
"The threat of avian influenza is ever present in Asia, contrary to some media reports that the risk of a pandemic is receding," Shigeru Omi, the World Health Organisation's (WHO's) regional director for Western Pacific, said.
Officials from the WHO, the Food and Agriculture (FAO) and World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) began a two-day meeting in the Malaysian capital on Monday to find ways to fight the virus at the point of interaction between humans and animals.
FAO chief Joseph Domenech estimated that Asia needed about $100 million between now and 2008 to contain bird flu but donors such as the United States, European Union and Australia have only pledged a total of less than $30 million.