4. Conference on Bird Flu Draws Pledges of $ 1.9 Billion

BEIJNG, Jan. 18 –Alarmed by as spate of bird flu infections and deaths in Turkey, 33 countries and multilateral institutions pledged $ 1.9 billion today to fight the disease.

The pledges, at the 1)conclusion of a two–day conference here , are considerably greater than the $ 1.2 billion to $1.4 billion that the World Bank had said was needed over the next three years.

James Adams, the World Bank’s 2)vice president for operations policy and country services, said that the over subscription would make it possible for poor countries to rely more on grants than loans in fighting the disease. The 3) $1.9 billion includes $ 1 billion in grants and $900 million in loans, including 4) $ 500 million in World Bank loans.

The United States pledged $334 million in grants for example, of which $31.3 million is money 5) transferred from funds previously earmarked for helping 6) survivors of the Asian tsunami on Dec. 26, 2004. But $280 million comes from new bird flu-related legislation passed by Congress just before Christmas, while another $22.7 million comes mostly from allocating money previously 7) set aside for international health issues, American officials said.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China came to the conference and 8) personally announced that his country was pledging $ 10 million to help other countries cope with the disease. Asked later at a new conference why China was pledging relatively little three days after in disclosed that its foreign currency reserves had hit a record$818.9 billion, Jia Youling, China’s chief veterinary official, said that 9)China was still a developing country and faced a serous challenge from bird flu within its borders. “China needs to eradicate the current avian influenza cases in China.”

10)United Nations and American officials said that China’s willingness to host the conference showed that it accepted responsibility for fighting the disease. By contrast, China had concealed the first outbreaks of SARS in late 2002 and early 2003 for four months, until the disease had spread to Hong Kong and around the world.