Asia Pacific nations Wednesday pledged to strengthen their ability to mount a swift and effective response to a possible bird flu pandemic, including stockpiling of drugs and vaccine development.

Foreign and trade ministers at the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum "noted with concern" the threat of avian influenza and agreed to accelerate work to counter the deadly H5N1 virus, a joint statement said.

The ministers "agreed it was critical to ensure that APEC was prepared for and had the capacity to effectively respond to infectious diseases at the individual, regional and international levels," said the statement.

It said APEC would cooperate with the World HealthOrganization, the Food and Agricultural Organization and the World Organization for Animal Health.

The ministers "underscored the importance of timely and accurate reporting and capacity building efforts to enable adequate, systematic and well-coordinated prevention."

They also endorsed a report reached during an APEC-organized meeting of international health experts in Brisbane late last month, which recommended measures such as stockpiling of drugs such as Tamiflu and developing a vaccine for the disease.

Ministers called for support to strengthen regional monitoring and response systems and welcomed an offer by Singapore for the use of its Regional Emerging Diseases Intervention Center to help APEC in responding to a possible pandemic.

It also included a proposal to hold a simulated outbreak of a human-to-human transmission of the bird flu virus next year to test APEC's emergency preparedness.

The H5N1 strain of bird flu has killed more than 60 people in Asia since late 2003 and experts fear disaster could strike if it becomes readily contagious through human-to-human contact.

All but four of the deaths -- which were in Cambodia -- were recorded in APEC member countries, namely Thailand, Indonesia and worst-hit Vietnam.

Asia Pacific leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao, will meet in the South Korean port of Busan for their annual summit on Friday and Saturday.

In Japan ahead of his arrival Wednesday in Busan, Bush urged his APEC colleagues to learn from the deadly SARS outbreak in 2003 and join forces to fight a potential worldwide spread of bird flu.