Next week schedules confirm a WHO meeting which would be attended by a small number of WHO important officials to discuss about the controversial bird flu studies.

Reports have confirmed that only 22 invitations have been sent to officials from outside the WHO as the meeting has been decided to be kept small and short.

This special meeting next week will strictly talk about the controversial bird flu studies and will be attended by the representatives of the Vietnamese and Indonesian laboratories, who have submitted the original viruses of the bird flu on which the research has been done, confirmed the Geneva-based global health agency.

Since the meeting has been scheduled with some strict discussion issues, officials doubt that all those, who want to discuss issues like where similar research could be conducted in future, should not expect much from the meeting.

"In this first meeting, we've got to sort out the deadlock, I think, that we're in with the scientific community. I don't think anyone anticipates that to happen very quickly", says Mr. Christy Feig, the WHO's Director of Communications. "The focus is very narrow. There's only so much ground you can cover in two days", he added.

The meeting sessions have been scheduled from Feb. 16 and 17. Venue of the meeting is WHO headquarters. The meeting will primarily discuss some basic controversial problems such as: should the two papers at the heart of the dispute be published, in full or in abbreviated form, if they must be abbreviated, which sections must be held back, etc.

Expectations from the meeting are only for a tentative agreement between the research teams and the journals, who are involved to publish only redacted versions.