Delegates from 80 countries and international agencies are meeting today to formulate the best way to fight the growing outbreak of avian influenza before it can cause a human pandemic that could kill millions.
"The world is clearly unprepared, or inadequately prepared, for a pandemic of H5N1 influenza," US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt told the meeting of the Infectious Disease Society of America in San Francisco.
US Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt
Everyone at the meeting, sponsored by the US State Department, has agreed in principle to share information quickly to allow health experts to contain the virus if it makes the jump to easily infect people.
Now, said officials, it is critical to make sure they actually do so.
"Speed is life," said a Health and Human Services Department official, who asked not to be named. "With proper coordination, we might be able to intervene in time."
The officials did not specifically say if other countries and the World Health Organisation would share scarce drugs to treat influenza and vaccines if a human epidemic breaks out.
But they hinted strongly that such help would not be available if a country has an outbreak and does not immediately report it.
The H5N1 avian influenza virus has killed or forced the destruction of tens of millions of birds and infected more than 100 people, killing at least 60 in four Asian nations since late 2003.
Scientists fear the virus will mutate so that it is able to be easily transmitted among humans, triggering a pandemic that could kill millions and even tens of millions in a worst-case scenario.