Indonesia still wants WHO virus-sharing assurances

JAKARTA, May 2 (Reuters) Indonesia has delayed sending bird flu samples to the World Health Organisation pending guarantees on how they are used, a senior health ministry official said today.

Indonesia, which has the highest human death toll from bird flu in the world, agreed at an international meeting in March to resume sending virus samples to the WHO after controversially halting the transfer late last year.

The meeting also agreed to a mechanism for developing nations to have fair access to bird flu vaccines and for transparent use of specimens, especially for commercial purposes.

But Triono Soendoro, the head of the health ministry's research and development agency, said that more than one month later the new mechanism was still being hammered out by WHO member countries.

''We want it to be fast, but it takes some time. WHO is not one country and there are different views,'' he told Reuters by telephone. ''If we resume virus-sharing but there's no guarantee that things will change, we are bound to stop it again and we will take blame for that,'' he said.

Jakarta stopped sending specimens to WHO laboratories in December, arguing that it was concerned the samples, which can be used to make vaccines, would be used commercially and only rich countries would benefit from any resultant vaccines.

Health experts say countries that restrict sample-sharing heighten risks because scientists would be unable to tell if a strain has mutated or built resistance to drugs.

Soendoro said over the past two years WHO laboratories had violated the body's own rules and the Convention on Biological Diversity by allowing companies and researchers to use Indonesian specimens without the country's permission.

''We had agreed to share the virus, that it is non-proprietary, for the global benefit but some parties take advantage of this by patenting part of the genetic sequence and claim that it is their invention,'' he said.

''And in the event of a pandemic only rich countries get access to vaccines while all we can do is watch.'' Bird flu has affected poultry across Asia and passed through Africa and Europe. Experts fear it could mutate into a form that would pass easily between people, triggering a pandemic that could kill millions.

The bird flu virus has killed 74 people in Indonesia.

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