March 2, 2007
Indonesia, WHO fail to end dispute over bird flu samples
Indonesia said it received a guarantee from the World Health Organization that the country's bird flu virus would not be used to develop an expensive, commercial vaccine, but the global body insisted Thursday (Mar 1) no such deal had been reached.
The two sides have been locked in a standoff since early last month, when Jakarta said it was withholding samples of its bird flu virus from WHO over concerns that developing nations wouldn't be able to afford vaccines in the event of a global pandemic.
Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari told reporters that WHO Director General Margaret Chan promised by telephone that Indonesia's strain of the H5N1 virus wouldn't be used for commercial purposes.
A letter of guarantee was expected to arrive within the next few days, Supari said, after which "Indonesia will resume sending as soon as possible".
"A guarantee signed by the director general is strong enough," she said.
But WHO spokesman Dick Thompson told The Associated Press no such deal had been cemented.
"This letter is still under development," he said. "Her (Supari's) characterisation of a guarantee is not correct."
Several countries are developing vaccines to protect against H5N1, the strain of bird flu responsible for 166 human deaths worldwide, more than one-third of them in Indonesia. The virus remains essentially an animal disease, but experts fear it may mutate into a form that can easily spread among humans.
Asian and Pacific region health leaders meet in Jakarta later this month to work out a way to ensure that large drug companies don't make vaccines that will be too expensive for their people.
"We want to change the system so that third world nations are not always the victims of developed countries," Supari said. "It is for the sake of humanity, not just for Indonesia."
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, is seen as a potential hotspot for a global pandemic because of its high density of people and chickens.
