LONDON, Feb 2 AAP World health experts are planning a $US2 million ($A3.67 million), six-month study of the health effects of depleted uranium weapons following concerns that soldiers in the Gulf War and the Balkans conflict are suffering unusually high rates of leukaemia and cancer.

The World Health Organisation today appealed for private sponsors to donate the money needed for the study, which would form the platform of a $US20 million ($A36.66 million), four-year study of the health effects of the armourpiercing artillery, following news that 17 NATO soldiers who served in Kosovo have developed leukaemia.

Britain has offered voluntary testing for soldiers who fear they may have been contaminated, while the Australian government will ask about 216 soldiers who served in the Balkans for blood and urine samples to monitor their health risk. NATO has maintained that the risk from exposure to depleted uranium (DU) is low. But WHO said today that there was not enough information to reach firm conclusions.

"Evidence on the incidence of cancers needs to be strengthened in communities within Iraq and the Balkans in order to draw any epidemiological conclusions," WHO emergency and humanitarian action department director Xavier Leus said.  "There is also very little information on other possible risk factors for civilians and the military that may be equally important. We need to examine possible connections between risk factors and health outcomes."

The appeal for funds coincided with an editorial in authoritative medical journal Lancet, which called for an indepth study of the dangers from DU, used in bullets and shells because of its hardness and penetrating power. When DU ammunition hits its target, it explodes and burns, forming a chemically toxic and radioactive dust. The uranium oxide compounds in this dust can enter the body by ingestion and inhalation, or through wounds caused by shrapnel.  In the Bosnian conflict, American aircraft used 10,800 shells containing DU, and during the 1999 Kosovo campaign, 31,000 rounds were fired.

"The Gulf War may have been a triumph against Saddam Hussein, but increased numbers of cases of cancer among war veterans and Iraqi civilians have been alleged ever since, and have been linked to the use of DU. Is a similar story going to unfold for the Balkan conflict over the next few years?" Lancet said.  It said that the 17 cases of leukaemia among 150,000 soldiers was roughly the same as the rate for the general community of 10 cases per 100,000, and said it was rare for cancer to develop within two years of exposure to a carcinogen like DU.  But it said those most at risk were the civilian populations of Iraq and the Balkans who continued to live near burntout tanks and were continually exposed to contamination in the air and water around them.