"It's not easy, the donor countries are not the affected countries," doctor Abdul Baqi from Bangladesh's Central Disease Investigation Laboratory told AFP after attending a bird flu conference in Ho Chi Minh City last week.

But the Asian regional director of the World Health Organisation (WHO), Shigeru Omi, warned at the conference that there was the "gravest possible danger" of a pandemic.

The bird flu virus which emerged in late 2003 has so far killed a total of 45 people in Vietnam and Thailand.

Many millions of chickens and other poultry have been slaughtered in an attempt to contain the virus.

The Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) says more than 100 million dollars is needed to urgently strengthen animal health services and laboratories to improve virus detection and ultimately eradicate the disease.

In addition, several hundred million dollars are needed to finance the restocking of infected poultry flocks and to restructure the whole sector, it says.

Experts also want chickens and ducks to be segregated from other farm animals such as pigs.

Only 18 million dollars has been committed to the tasks so far, according to the FAO.

"Compared to the tsunami, the donor countries will see how much business will be affected, so I think it (funding) will take time," Baqi said after the Ho Chi Minh conference ended Friday.

Oxfam said Friday that the tsunami had shown that when the world wanted to deal with a humanitarian crisis it could mobilise massive resources and save lives.

"So far the global response to the world's other emergencies has been stingy in comparison," said Barbara Stocking, director of Oxfam Great Britain, referring mostly to crises in Africa.

"The aid agenda should be set according to need and not according to media coverage," she said.

Omi, whose native Japan is seen as one of the most generous international donors, said health officials had to be realistic in making demands.

"Unless we give the total picture ... as to what is the timeframe, what is the overall strategy, what is the monitoring system, if you are the donor, you feel uncomfortable in giving the money," he said.

Joseph Annelli, director the United States' Department of Agriculture's Interagency Coordination, said money was being given but additional funding would depend on specific requests.

"(Bird flu) control measures don't have to be expensive but they do cost something to do appropriately. It is important to provide as much as possible," Annelli said.

"If there are specific requests, we are willing to entertain them," he added.

Omi said specific plans were being drawn up.

"We have done some (planning) but we haven't done sufficiently in the past," Omi said.

"That's why we decided to intensify efforts to come up with regional, global policy and also country specific (action plans)," he said, urging affected countries to make concrete requests to donors.

Bird flu has been found in eight countries since late 2003, namely Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China, Indonesia, Japan, Laos and South Korea.

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