PARIS (Reuters) - The head of the global animal health body OIE hailed the launch of a $1 billion plan to tackle bird flu, but criticized the World Health Organization's (WHO) earlier handling of the crisis.

The plan unveiled by health experts at a WHO meeting in Geneva this week, supported by the World Bank, is aimed at rooting out bird flu among poultry and stopping it from spawning an influenza pandemic which could kill millions of people.

Bernard Vallat, the director general of the Paris-based World Animal Health Organization (OIE), told the French newspaper Liberation he was satisfied with the outcome of the Geneva conference.

"The massive commitment by the World Bank should allow countries affected or at risk to benefit from effective veterinary services," he was quoted as saying on Saturday.

Underlining the need for long-term measures to tackle bird flu, he said: "We are going to see more and more new diseases and developing countries are real time bombs."

Vallat said he was glad the OIE's voice had been heard in Geneva. The international community had earlier ignored its advice to provide more money to developing countries -- and sooner -- to reduce the risk of a human pandemic, he said.

"We were not listened to and the WHO is perhaps responsible for this," Vallat said. "But at the conference in Geneva our message was finally heard.

"If you ask (WHO experts) when (there will be a human pandemic) they say maybe tomorrow, or later ... But they do not always say that it could be at the end of the century," he said. "No one in the world can predict when the pandemic will come."

The World Bank has proposed a financing framework for the plan unveiled in Geneva. It says its package will contain both grants or interest-free loans for countries, while half of the $1 billion needed will be funded by a trust financed by donors.

The H5N1 virus is endemic in poultry across Asia, where it has killed more than 60 people. It has also been found in birds in eastern Europe and there are fears migrating flocks could take it to the Middle East and Africa.

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