April 18, 2007

WHO complains China ignoring requests for bird flu samples
 

China has not shared samples of human bird flu cases in a year, the World Health Organization said Wednesday, a move that could hamper the continuing efforts to fight the disease.

The Health Ministry last shared human H5N1 virus samples in April and May 2006, said WHO spokeswoman Joanna Brent.

"Since then, there have been five H5N1 cases in China, plus a Beijing 2003 case reported in 2006," Brent said.

The agency has requested two samples from the five recent incidents and one from the 2003 case, she said.

Telephones at the Health Ministry rang unanswered on Wednesday.

China has been in the past reticent to share animal samples. International health experts have repeatedly complained about Chinese foot-dragging in cooperating on investigating emerging diseases such as bird flu and the SARS pneumonia.

Virus samples are needed to produce diagnostic tools and vaccines. The lack of cooperation, experts say, could slow efforts to track diseases and develop vaccines and other strategies to deal with them.

Since it began ravaging Asian poultry farms in late 2003, the H5N1 strain of bird flu has infected nearly 300 people worldwide, killing more than half of them.