Asian ministers agree to fight bird flu
(AP)
Updated: 2005-09-30 21:54

Southeast Asia's agriculture ministers endorsed a regional plan Friday to combat bird flu and pledged to cooperate with international agencies in stamping out the menace — a move they hope will win enough international aid to halt the disease before it becomes a catastrophic epidemic with the potential to kill millions of people globally.

The ministers from the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations said in a statement that "the highly pathogenic avian influenza," which has ravaged poultry populations in large swaths of Asia and killed dozens of people, requires "an all-out coordinated regional effort."

The meeting in the Philippines ended with the ASEAN ministers' joint statement endorsing a regional plan for control and eradication of bird flu over three years from 2006 and directing a new task force to urgently formulate "a detailed action plan for implementation and proceed to identify potential sources of funding."

The plan covers eight strategic areas including a disease surveillance and alert system, vaccination, improving diagnostic capability and establishing disease-free zones.