Fears about avian influenza were already damaging some Asian economies and the impact of a full-scale pandemic would be "catastrophic", a conference of international health officials has been told.

Officials from the 21 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) economies met to discuss how to cope with the nightmare scenario of a bird flu virus that was readily spread through human contact, creating a pandemic that could threaten millions of lives in the region.

Australian APEC ambassador Doug Chester said delegates at the two-day meeting held behind closed doors in Brisbane canvassed issues such as sealing international borders, stockpiling anti-viral drugs and maintaining essential services if a pandemic occurred.

"There are general issues that everyone's flagged. They will be early detection, early response, trying to contain the geographic location of any outbreak and going beyond that, issues of lines of containment," Chester told reporters after the meeting.

"That may include border closures, it may include control of movement of citizens."

Chester said the meeting, which also included participants from Pacific island countries and the World Health Organisation (WHO), examined the economic impact of a pandemic and how business would recover from an outbreak.

"The representative of the APEC Business Advisory Committee made the point that if there were a full-blown pandemic in the region, then the impact on business would be quite catastrophic," he said.

Chester said at least one APEC country, which he refused to name, was stockpiling anti-viral drugs so they could be used to protect essential workers and keep critical infrastructure such as electricity stations operating throughout a pandemic.

He said delegates agreed on the need to be open and transparent in reporting bird flu cases so outbreaks could be quickly contained and the problems with excessive secrecy experienced in the early days of the emergence of the SARS virus were not repeated.

But he said the officials did not want to create a panic about the prospect of the H5N1 bird flu virus -- which has killed more than 60 people in Asia since late 2003 -- mutating into a form that is easily spread through human-to-human contact.

"We need to be prepared for a pandemic but the threat should not be overplayed," he said. "Whilst it is a serious threat, there is an element of scaremongering that is undermining planning in some economies and is causing unnecessary economic damage in some economies."

Chester said that as a result of the meeting, delegates would recommend APEC ministers at a summit in the Korean city of Busan later this month approve an exercise involving a simulated human-to-human bird flu outbreak early next year.

He said the exercise would examine how well APEC economies coordinated their regional response to a potential pandemic.

Earlier, The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said it needed 102 million US dollars to help poor South East Asian countries contain bird flu over the next three years.

FAO chief technical adviser Subhash Morzaria said a further 75 million US dollars in emergency funding would be required if the bird flu virus spread from Eastern Europe to Africa.

"This is related to economic status. The poorer countries will have greater difficulty preparing."

PHOTO CAPTION

An Indonesian chicken seller waits for customers at a market in Jakarta, Nov 1, 2005. (Reuters)