A donor conference in Beijing on Jan. 18 pledged $2 billion in global funding to tackle the virus.

The virus is endemic in poultry and has killed at least 88 people in seven countries since it re-emerged in 2003.

The H5N1 strain in humans remains relatively rare but there are fears it could mutate into a form that passes easily from person to person and cause a pandemic in which millions could die.

"There is money now and the challenge is for governments to put proposals on the table which we will respond to very quickly," said Jim Adams, the bank's vice president for operations policy and country services, in an interview with Reuters.

He said the first proposed funding from the $2 billion multi-donor war chest, being managed by the World Bank, would likely be approved for Kyrgyzstan on Thursday.

Discussions are also underway with Turkey, where four people died from the virus last month, to consider tapping about $30 million in donor aid and grant funding to strengthen the country's capability to detect and eradicate bird flu.

Adams said other countries also likely to benefit soon were Armenia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Indonesia, Cambodia and Laos. A program in Vietnam could possibly be expanded, he said.

Adams said the immediate priorities for the World Bank and UN agencies were to work with governments to identify their most pressing needs to tackle bird flu; to ensure transparency in how the funds are used; and to compile an international framework for monitoring the programs.

"The challenge really now is to get these financing mechanisms up and working and hold people accountable if the money starts flowing," he said.

He said the aim was to ensure that programs and funding approval were not caught in unnecessary bureaucracy.

"We have deliberately put in place a framework we think will make things a lot easier to get into the program," Adams said. "If circumstances change, obviously there has to be some adaptation, but I do think that we found in Kyrgyz Republic-- and now in Turkey - we are finding this approach to be quite effective in allowing us to move forward in weeks, instead of months, in preparing and appraising projects," he said.

"For us timing is very important to get there before the problem," he pointed out.