CORRECTED - Health ministers focus on pandemic flu and vaccines

* Flu fears cause shorter World Health Organisation congress

* Pandemic vaccine development to dominate five-day meeting

* Rich and poor countries to negotiate virus sample sharing (Corrects spelling of Mexican minister name to Cordova)

By Katie Reid and Laura MacInnis

GENEVA, May 18 (Reuters) - Health ministers from around the world agreed to drop nearly everything but pandemic flu from their annual congress agenda on Monday, so they can go home sooner to monitor the H1N1 strain that is now affecting Japan.

The new virus that killed 66 people in its epicentre Mexico has caused infections in at least 39 countries and caused the World Health Organisation to say a pandemic is imminent.

"As we meet today, influenza A/H1N1 is at our doors," Leslie Ramsammy, Guyana's health minister told the assembly, which will now end on Friday instead of next Wednesday.

The delegates including Mexico's health minister Jose Angel Cordova will spend this week discussing how to best respond to the H1N1 flu, which has caused mild symptoms in most of the 8,480 people infected to date.

They will also seek an agreement on how samples of the virus should be handled and shared with pharmaceutical companies working to develop vaccines to fight the strain, which is a genetic mixture of swine, bird and human viruses.