March 27, 2007

 

Indonesia stands firm in bird flu virus samples row with WHO
 

 

Indonesia insisted Tuesday that it would only resume sharing bird flu virus samples with the World Health Organization if the body stops providing them to commercial vaccine makers.

 

The defiant comments by Health Minister Siti Fadiliah Supari came as top WHO officials met with Indonesian counterparts and other global health chiefs in Jakarta to try to persuade the country to resume sharing its samples.

 

Indonesia - the nation hardest hit by bird flu, with 66 human deaths - is refusing to send samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus to the WHO, which makes them available to vaccine makers.

 

Indonesia says it cannot afford vaccines produced commercially using its strains under the current system.

 

"The WHO must change the mechanism which has gone on for 40 or 50 years that is unfair to developing countries," she told el-Shinta radio station in an interview. "These practices keep developing countries poor and sick. The system is more dangerous than bird flu itself."

 

Indonesia's decision has received support from some other developing nations, but has alarmed international scientists wanting to check whether the virus is mutating into a more dangerous form.

 

On Monday, Dr David Heymann, WHO's top flu official, dismissed an Indonesian suggestion that the WHO sign a legally binding agreement stating that any samples it receives would not be used for commercial purposes. Heymann said such an agreement would hinder research into the virus.

 

He suggested several solutions to ensure a fairer distribution of the vaccine, among them, creating a stockpile of vaccines for use in developing countries and transferring technology so they can produce their own vaccines.

 

"I am not asking for laboratories or vaccines, I am demanding our rights as a nation. If these talks end in deadlock, don't blame me," Supari said.

 

To ensure it has access to a bird flu vaccine, Indonesia has reached a tentative agreement with US drug manufacturer Baxter Healthcare Corp. Under the deal, Indonesia would provide samples of the virus in exchange for Baxter's expertise in vaccine production. Indonesia would stockpile the vaccine for use in case there is a major human outbreak.

 

On Monday, the US urged Indonesia to resume sharing samples with the WHO.

 

"All nations have a responsibility to share data and virus samples," US Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said in an e-mailed statement that also offered US$10 million to WHO to help ensure poor countries have access to vaccines.

 

For at least 50 years, the WHO has collected regular flu samples from around the world and made them available to vaccine makers. Developing countries have not protested the system before because their demand for regular flu vaccines was low.

 

The three-day meeting, attended by health officials from 18 countries, is to end Wednesday.

 

Bird flu has killed at least 169 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, according to WHO. It remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds. But experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.

 

Currently, only up to about 500 million doses of flu vaccine can be produced annually - far short of what would be needed in a pandemic.

 

Next week, the WHO and Asian partners will conduct their first test of how rapidly they can contain the first signs of a pandemic, using a mock scenario of a human bird flu outbreak in Cambodia, WHO said Tuesday.

 

The secretariat of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, the governments of Japan and Cambodia, and the Japan International Cooperation System will take part in the drills, which will be held at WHO's western Pacific regional office in Manila.

 

The exercise is designed to be the first in a series of tests in the Asia-Pacific region.