Indonesia Will Resume Sharing Bird Flu Samples With WHO

Mar 28, 03:09 PM

Current Headlines: By Peter Gelling

At the close of an emergency meeting here Tuesday with the World Health Organization, the Indonesian health minister announced that she had reached an agreement on vaccines and would begin sharing samples of bird flu viruses again immediately.

Siti Fadilah Supari, the health minister, said a timetable had been worked out to reform the 50-year old system of sharing viruses with the WHO that would ensure that developing countries would be able to afford potential vaccines.

"We have agreed with WHO on a timetable to make the changes necessary to accomplish our objective of achieving equitable and affordable access to vaccines for developing countries around the world," she said at a news conference.

The agreement stipulates that, until a new system of sharing is developed, the WHO will not hand over potential vaccines developed from samples taken from Indonesia to pharmaceutical companies without the consent of the Indonesian government.

The agreement ended a stand-off between Jakarta and the WHO that began in December, when Indonesia refused to share samples of the H5N1 avian influenza virus.

More details were expected to be made public Wednesday after an Indonesian ministerial meeting. But David Heymann, assistant director general for communicable diseases at the WHO, said a complete revision of the virus sharing system, including how potential vaccines would be shared with pharmaceutical companies, would not be finalized for at least three months. "We will make seed viruses, but not share them further until an agreement is reached," he said.

There are no commercially available vaccines for avian flu, although several companies are working to produce them.

Indonesia stopped sending virus samples to the WHO because it was concerned it would not be able to afford expensive vaccines produced by pharmaceutical companies.

WHO officials had criticized the move because it severely limited the organization's ability to track bird flu and to develop a vaccine.

But on Tuesday, Heymann thanked Indonesia for bringing the issue to the world's attention. "We feel Indonesia has raised an issue that is very important," he said, "and we are grateful that they showed us the way forward."

The WHO agreement came a day after Indonesia recorded two more deaths from the H5N1 strain of bird flu, bringing the country's total number of deaths to 68, far more than any other country. The Health Ministry said Tuesday that a teenager and a 22-year-old woman were suspected to have died of H5N1.

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