JAKARTA, May 18 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) asked the international community to put top priority on allocating funds for the efforts to stop the spread of avian influenza, top official said here on Thursday.

    "Some nine billion U.S. dollars was pledged by the world to fight avian Influenza, but most of this money is on the prevention measures in case of pandemic. This is at the level of human beings instead of giving priority to the current disease itself. It is the disease of animals," said FAO Director General Jack Diouf at the FAO's 28th Regional Conference for Asia and the Pacific Region.

    "We agree with the precautionary measures that make sense, but we also think that the strategy should focus on stopping avian influenza at the level of poultry and birds, if the pandemic actions are the second line of defense," he said.

    "We have therefore been able to collect some funds. It is still marginal compared to money that is being put into fighting the possible pandemic at the level of human being," the director said.

    The disease that earlier only contracted livestock in three countries in Southeast Asia, namely Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia, now had spread to nearly all over the world, he said.

    "If we are able to eliminate, at least limit the number of birds that are infected, then we will limit the risk of transmission to human being and other consequences. They have got to mutate for direct transmission from human being to human being," he said.

    To pave the way for reaching the goal, the director stressed the need for international cooperation and an immediate respond tothe danger of the virus.

    "The crisis is here, and now it is an international crisis. No one is immune if we do not take the action," he said.

    "But, naturally, we are not naive. We know that it is difficult. It needs a lot of works, a lot of convincing, and a lot of efforts with different donors," said Diouf.

    The World Health Organization (WHO) has recently confirmed fourpeople in North Sumatra province and one in East Java province dying of the highly pathogenic H5N1 virus, raising the human death of bird flu in the country to 30.

    The highly pathogenic H5N1 virus has contracted more than 150 people in the world, and more than a half of them have died.

    As the disease has spread to most areas of the world, experts fear that the virus mutates into a certain form that can easily transmit from human to human, which can kill millions of people. Enditem