The United States pledged 3.15 million US dollars for Indonesia to strengthen its early warning system and early diagnosis, improve surveillance, and bolster rapid response teams in containing avian influenza, a local newspaper reported Tuesday.

The donation would be a small portion of the overall assistance and cooperation that exists between the United States and Asia, which would receive 25 million dollars for training, supplies, laboratory equipment, village-based surveillance systems and public information campaigns in the fight against bird flu, said The Jakarta Post.

"International cooperation is critical in the efforts we are all making on avian influenza," Visiting US Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt was quoted as saying.

Leavitt said after meeting President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono earlier Monday that the world was a biologically dangerous place right now, and no nation was well-enough prepared for a flu pandemic.

"(But) we're better prepared today than we were last week, and we'll be better prepared next week than we are today. There is a continuum of preparation, and the continuum needs to go well beyond the concern about H5N1," he said referring to the strain of avian influenza that has killed more than 60 people in the region including at least three in Indonesia in the past two years.

Leavitt was on a two-day visit here, after traveling to Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam in the past week to get information on the virus.

Leavitt said that he had a productive meeting with President Susilo and related ministers about the importance of regional cooperation and international cooperation, and areas that the U.S. was willing to help.

He also suggested that culling infected poultry was clearly part of the tool kit available to countries to deal with the dilemma, and an important strategy in eliminating the virus.

Source: Xinhua