Vietnam, the country hit worst by bird flu, has appealed for technical and financial help to fight the virus now endemic in the region, its chief of animal health said on Thursday.

Bui Quang Anh, head of the Agriculture’s Ministry’s Animal Health Department, said Vietnam’s first priority was to expand provincial laboratories on the front line of the war against a disease that has killed 13 people in Vietnam’s latest outbreak.

One project to boost bird flu testing facilities in 20 provinces would require 40 billion dong ($2.5 million), while a new central laboratory to research the virus and produce poultry vaccines would cost $1 million.

“I reckon we will need the aid to enhance our lab facilities,” Anh said on the sidelines of a bird flu conference in Ho Chi Minh City.

U.N. experts say countries hit by the H5N1 poultry virus will need hundreds of millions of dollars from donors to sustain a prolonged fight against the disease now endemic in parts of Asia.

Vietnam also needed the expertise of foreign epidemiologists and virologists to help analyze the epidemic, contain it and produce vaccines, Anh said.

The World Health Organization and health officials fear that the H5N1 strain might mutate into a lethal new virus that could spread rapidly among humans, killing millions in a global pandemic unless concerted action was taken.

Hans Troedsson, Vietnam representative of the WHO, said the country was seeking aid from Japan, Denmark, France, Britain as well as multilateral organizations like the World Bank.

“Vietnam, as all other countries, needs to prepare a national influenza pandemic preparedness plan where particularly technical expertise to support that process is needed,” he said.

MUCH UNKNOWN

The highly contagious virus erupted in Asia in late 2003, probably brought by migrating wildfowl. The latest outbreaks since late 2004 spread to 35 of Vietnam’s 64 provinces and the virus has now killed 46 people.

Bird flu experts attending the Ho Chi Minh City conference say they still don’t know how the poultry virus jumps to humans.

“We know that it transmits from sick poultry to humans, but how that’s happening we don’t know enough,” Troedsson said.

Anh said the lack of the knowledge was a major hurdle in convincing the public to stay alert.

While news of bird flu-related deaths has scared people away from eating chicken, many farmers have let down their guard because they did not get sick after direct contact with poultry, he said.

Getting information down on the farm was a top priority in fighting bird flu, Anh.

Plans are underway to pay a monthly salary of $25 to 20,000 commune-based animal health officials who are key to reporting new outbreaks and urging farmers to take preventative measures.

Anh said traditional ways of raising birds in Vietnam - where 90 percent of 14 million farm families raise poultry in their backyard - need to change.

But he admitted the challenge was huge.

“It is the toughest task to control it at the family level,” Anh said, adding it would take a long time to persuade farmers to keep chickens in cages and stop eating or selling sick poultry.