NEW DELHI (AFP) -- Indian government officials and wildlife experts from across South Asia met to discuss a ban on the farm drug diclofenac, which has driven vultures in the region to the brink of extinction.

Vulture numbers have plummeted in the region since the early 1990s because the birds absorb toxic amounts of the livestock painkiller by scavenging the carcasses of buffaloes and goats.

"The officials are meeting to discuss how to save vultures, and to ask for a ban on diclofenac," an official from the environment ministry said on Tuesday, adding that experts from Nepal, Bhutan and Britain were present.

Environment minister Thiru A. Raja said in a statement that diclofenac should be banned but commentators said this step would require cabinet approval.

According to Indian media reports, scientists have proposed an alternative drug, meloxicam, which they say is harmless to vultures.

Minister Raja said urgent steps were needed to conserve three species of vulture -- white backed, slender billed and long billed -- which are in danger of extinction.

"The government will shortly conduct a detailed survey on all the vulture range states to assess vulture population," Raja said in the statement.

Researchers have warned that the three species in South Asia could be wiped out by the end of the decade.

Diclofenac is a painkiller for livestock that is sold over the counter across South Asia, and in other parts of the world too.

In a study published this month in the British journal Biology Letters, British and South African scientists tested diclofenac on the Griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), which inhabits parts of Central Asia and southern Africa, and on the African white-backed vulture (Gyps africanus).

The birds were given meat from goats and buffaloes that had been treated with diclofenac a few hours before being slaughtered.

Within 48 hours, all the birds were dead.

A post-mortem examination showed extensive damage by uric acid crystals, a condition called visceral gout, to their kidneys, liver and spleen. The control birds, though, were fine.

Populations of the three South Asian species have plummeted by more than 95 percent since the early 1990s and are now listed as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union.

The dying out of the vultures would be an irreplaceable loss of a link in the food chain. In India, the birds also play a vital cultural role. Followers of the minority Parsi faith depend on vultures for disposal of their corpses, considering the burial or burning of human remains to defile the elements.