In a three-day meeting in Geneva as many as 400 health and veterinary officials representing international agencies, are attempting to establish a global strategy to stop the spread of the deadly H5N1 virus triggering a human pandemic of bird flu.
David Nabarro, the senior U.N. coordinator for avian and human influenza, has said he expects health and veterinary officials to draw up a sweeping battle plan against the disease this week.
Nabarro says that a global programme would require investment in veterinary services, boosting human disease surveillance, scientific cooperation on vaccine development as well as negotiations with drug companies on access to existing antivirals.
The disease which has to date killed more than 60 people in Asia, has the potential to develop into a human pandemic that could kill millions.
According to Nabarro as part of the plan, the World Bank has proposed setting up a fund to help both countries and agencies respond to the crisis.
Nabarro says he believes there is a good chance that people will pledge to accept a set of basic principles and elements for what will become an international programme to be presented to communities over the next couple of months.
Jim Adams, the World Bank's chief for operations policy and country services, who will make a financial presentation to the talks on Wednesday, has said a trust fund would require initial donations of $300 million to $500 million to help countries set up programmes.
That still has to be decided.
The World Bank is suggesting a flexible and responsive set of systems in order to meet the requirements of the donor nations.
Nabarro, a former senior World Health Organisation (WHO) official named by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to the new post in late September, has said that three days was a short period to meet such a huge challenge.
Nabarro says preliminary discussions on establishing regional stockpiles of vaccines and antivirals were expected, but he cautioned that "difficult dilemmas" would need to be resolved over time on where the stockpiles would be placed and who would decide when they should be used.
The deadly H5N1 virus is known to have killed 63 people in four Asian countries and led to the culling of 150 million birds worldwide.