Indonesia resumes sharing of H5N1 virus with WHO

GENEVA, May 15 (Reuters) Indonesia has resumed sharing samples of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus with the World Health Organisation (WHO) after a five-month gap, its health minister said today.

''I am pleased to announce to all of you that Indonesia has resumed sending its H5N1 specimens to the WHO collaborating centre in Tokyo,'' Siti Fadillah Supari told the WHO's annual assembly in Geneva.

Indonesia, which has the world's highest human death toll from bird flu, stopped sharing virus with the WHO last December because it said it feared that it would not benefit from any vaccines made from it.

The WHO and other experts say sharing samples is vital to finding ways to fight the virus, while Indonesia and some other developing countries want to make sure that they have access to human vaccines at reasonable prices.

On March 28, Indonesia announced that it had reached an agreement with the WHO to begin sharing virus again under a new framework to give developing nations access to vaccines.

Today's announcement was the first confirmation that H5N1 samples had been sent abroad to a WHO-approved laboratory.

The virus has killed over 170 people, mainly in south-east Asia, since it re-emerged in 2003. Although it remains mainly an avian disease, scientists fear that if it mutates into disease easily transmittable amongst people, it could kill millions.

REUTERS RJ KN1550