viral drugs. "It may also be important for countries like Australia ... to consider whether they might better use part of that stockpile in the front line rather than waiting for the infection to come to Australia," Dr Hampson said. Delegates agreed to test the "regional cooperation mechanism" early next year. Doug Chester, Australia's ambassador to APEC, spoke of "something along the lines of a desktop exercise to test the interaction between APEC economies should there be a human-to-human outbreak in the region". He went on: "That in itself would help all economies to check whether their plans may need to be changed". Delegates from Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia and other poor countries asked for money to buy stockpiles of anti-viral drugs. There was no immediate response to these requests. --SP 1405 Local Time 1105 GMT
