NAIROBI, March 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Visiting World Health Organization(WHO) Director General Lee Jong-Wook has called on African governments to set up special fund to help fight the deadly bird flu instead of waiting for donor assistance.

    "Donors will not come and compensate the culling of chickens in your backyard. Governments should do it for its citizens," Lee told a news conference in Nairobi late Wednesday.

    He said African governments should commit their own resources to deal with the deadly H5N1 strain which has become a worldwide problem.

    "If there are shortfalls, these shortfalls clearly have to come from international partners," said Lee, who arrived in the east African country on Wednesday.

    He said each government must set aside funds from its national budget for surveillance and compensation of farmers.

    Lee called on the governments to improve on their surveillance to curtail the spread of disease.

    "Surveillance is very important and sharing information is also very important," he said during a meeting with Kenya's Health Minister Charity Ngilu.

    He expressed concern that some countries are hiding the emergency of the disease because they fear that their tourism industry and consumption of chicken will be adversely affected.

    "This tendency to hide the problem is further complicating our efforts to fight it. We must confront it early enough so that it does not become a bigger problem and we end up using more resources," Lee said.

    The H5N1 bird flu virus has led to the deaths of millions of birds in more than 30 countries. It has spread to over a dozen new countries in the past month and infected 175 people since 2003, killing 96 of them.

    Although it remains an avian disease, and rarely affects humans, health officials fear it will mutate into a form that can easily jump from human to human, triggering a pandemic, in which millions of people might die.

    In Africa, the strain has been found in Nigeria, Egypt and Niger, while several countries have stepped up surveillance measures to fight the disease.

    Kenya is among several countries, which have slapped full or partial imports on imports of poultry, their products and wild birds and have begun monitoring migratory birds as they arrive, said Ngilu.

    She said the government had spent more than 84 million shillings (about 1.2 million dollars) on preparation and surveillance, adding that the east African nation was fully prepared for any outbreaks and has set up a task force to address the issue.

    The country needs an additional 55 million shillings (about 764,000 U.S. dollars) to prepare for a possible outbreak, said Ngilu.

    "The country is very prepared for any eventuality, but we are appealing to donors to come in and help us raise the funds we need to deal with the disease in case it is reported in the country," the minister said.

    Kenya, which lies in the migratory path along with other east African Rift Valley nations, including Ethiopia, Tanzania and Uganda, are considered at high risk for the spread of the virus as millions of migratory birds flock there during the European winter.Enditem