WHO says studying bird flu vaccine insurance policy

SEATTLE, June 14 (Reuters) The World Health Organization made a unique proposition what if big donors pooled resources to take out private insurance to pay for vaccines in the case of a bird flu pandemic? WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan said yesterday the organization had been given more preparation time than it could have hoped for ahead of an influenza pandemic.

Chan said the WHO was using that time to study various financing options to allow poor developing nations to receive vaccines and prevent a pandemic catastrophe that could kill millions of people.

''I am sure the insurance industry can underwrite a policy for that,'' said Chan, speaking during a panel discussion at the Pacific Health Summit in Seattle.

Taking donations to buy vaccines before an outbreak may not please cost-conscious donors, said Chan, but it may make more sense to have organizations donate money to pay for an insurance policy premium.

''Is the world prepared to buy an insurance for an event which is low probability and extremely high risk?'' said Chan.

''I am not sure it will work, but clearly we need to think outside the box.'' The WHO says a pandemic of some kind of influenza is inevitable.

It is not clear when it would come and which strain of flu would cause it, but H5N1 avian influenza is causing the greatest concern.

H5N1 has infected 312 people in 12 countries and killed 190 of them. It now almost exclusively infects birds.

Experts say the danger is the virus will evolve just slightly into a form that people can easily catch and pass to one another, in which case the transmission rate would soar, causing a pandemic.

Many health experts at the Pacific Health Summit said a vaccine would be the most effective way to contain the disease.

But vaccines against flu take months to formulate and manufacture.

Vaccines are a thorny issue because many developing nations are concerned that drug companies will make a vaccine too expensive for poorer countries.

Indonesia, which has the world's highest number of deaths from bird flu, refused this year to share samples of H5N1 with the WHO unless it had guarantees they would not be used commercially.

A five-month hiatus ended in March when the two sides reached an agreement to improve access to safe and effective H5N1 vaccines and other potential pandemic influenza vaccines.

Dr. Tadataka Yamada, president of the global health program at the Bill&Melinda Gates Foundation, estimated during the summit that vaccine procurement aid for developing nations could cost about 6 billion dollar. That would meet the needs of half the world's population for a 2 dollar a dose vaccine, Yamada said.

Earlier yesterday, GlaxoSmithKline Plc said it would donate 50 million doses of its ''pre-pandemic'' bird flu vaccine for humans to a global stockpile for distribution in the world's poorest countries. Other drug makers also announced plans to provide vaccine doses into a global stockpile.

Chan said the world had an unprecedented chance to have vaccines ready to coincide with the outbreak of a pandemic.

''Nature has given us an unprecedented warning,'' she said.

''We have been given more time to prepare than anyone dared hope.'' REUTERS SG VC0930