The announcement would be made during the three-day conference on Avian flu in New Delhi beginning on Wednesday.

"We would enhance the international pledge towards fighting the disease," Ambassador John E Lange, US special representative on Avian and Pandemic influenza, said.

Emphasising on the need for increased cooperation among nations to fight the dreaded disease which is feared to be mutating fast enough to infect human beings, he said, "we already have bilateral cooperation agreements with India and are running nine centres in the country to help it fight the disease.

"There is an increased need for high quality laboratories to diagnose the virus," according to Danielle Miller of the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention.