A top health official in Vietnam said it is preparing to combat bird flu over the long haul as the virus shows signs of increased momentum.

Nine people have died in Vietnam from the H5N1 bird flu strain since December 30 compared to 20 for the rest of last year.

``Compared to the first wave in 2004, the number of people infected with pneumonia caused by the H5N1 virus is not as big, but it is spreading faster and with more potency,'' the Health Ministry's director of preventative medicine Trinh Quan Huan said.

The World Health Organization's 32-nation executive board met overnight in Geneva to discuss the urgent need for more international attention on bird flu.

Human cases of bird flu have generally been traced to sick birds, not other people, but WHO experts fear the disease could soon mutate into a form that easily spreads among people, sparking a global flu pandemic like the Spanish flu of 1918, which killed up to 40 million people.

``As a global community we are still ill-prepared - and as long as one of us is not prepared, none of us is prepared,'' WHO's communicable diseases division head Anarfi Asamoa-Baah said.

The board passed a resolution that included ways to strengthen bird flu surveillance, boost research on a vaccine, and stockpile the drug when it comes onto the market.

In Thailand, ministers approved a 500 million baht (HK$101.25 million) emergency budget to deal with bird flu this year, with much of it earmarked to buy vaccines.

No new human cases have been reported in Thailand, but outbreaks among poultry have resurfaced in the country, where 12 people died last year.

Two brothers from northern Vietnam were expected to be released from hospital after recovering from bird flu, their doctor said. Their older brother also contracted the virus and died two weeks ago. All three consumed raw duck blood pudding before testing positive for the disease, officials said. But a younger brother did not show any symptoms.

WHO has not ruled out human-to-human transmission among the brothers, but experts say isolated cases of human transmission have occurred in the past and do not necessarily mean the virus has mutated.