Basically, you can't, it's a limitation of the InnoDB format. If you change the table type to MyISAM, that query would be almost instantaneous. But you are probably using InnoDB for a reason, so you may be stuck if you want a record count.
As Brent said, there is no way to optimize count(*) with InnoDB. However, there are a couple of workarounds that can help:
* Upgrade to 4.0 and enable the query cache. If the cache is large enough, count(*) will be executed all the way only the first time after you've updated the table. If you do not update a lot, this would help.
* Create a record count summary table that will store the value of count(*) and update it in your application every time you insert or delete records
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