Programming :: Thread Scheduling And Signalling

I have a program which is uses sigaction to register for a SIGIO signal (for incoming data on a fd) with an appropriate event handler. I also create a new detached thread 'B' that does some work with the received data. Normally the thread B runs properly. But when my event handler is called (because a there is new incoming data), after the event is handled, the thread B is not called immediately. There is a noticeable delay of the order of many seconds before it is scheduled again .During this delay, my program is doing nothing.

What am i doing wrong? Is there someway i can run thread B as soon as the event is handled (and assuming no other work is to be carried out)?