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  Channel NewsAsia 28 Mar 07
Indonesia lifts WHO bird flu samples ban

Yahoo News 20 Mar 07
WHO trying to get bird flu vaccine agreement
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

Channel NewsAsia 17 Feb 07
Indonesia to resume sending bird flu samples to WHO

Yahoo News 8 Feb 07
Critics of Indonesia bird flu ban accept valid point
By Tan Ee Lyn

HONG KONG (Reuters) - Health experts and aid agencies condemned Indonesia on Thursday for refusing to share H5N1 bird flu samples with foreign laboratories but conceded that the developing country has a valid point to make.

Life-saving medicines from HIV antiretrovirals to heart disease drugs are often inaccessible to developing countries because of restrictive patent laws and high costs.

These same nations now increasingly worry that vaccines and drugs to fight the H5N1 virus would similarly be out of reach in the event of an influenza pandemic.

On Wednesday, Indonesia declared it would only share its H5N1 bird flu samples with those who agreed not to use them for commercial reasons. Its officials insisted it was unfair for foreign vaccine makers to use these samples, design vaccines, patent them and then sell the "discovery" back to the country.

Aid agencies said that, while Jakarta's actions were reprehensible, its concerns and worries were valid and they were not confined to Indonesia alone.

"People (pharmaceutical firms) should be more sympathetic to public health issues," said Loretta Wong, chief executive of Aids Concern, a group dedicated to helping and securing treatment for people living with HIV/ AIDS.

"After all, we are talking about human lives. One will not die not being able to watch pirated VCDs but one will die without access to affordable treatment," she said.

Indonesia's move struck a chord with Thailand, which recently voiced similar fears at a World Health Organization (WHO) meeting in Geneva.

"The Indonesian health minister is wise, and sending a strong message that, unless developing countries which are at the epicenter of the pandemic can be assured access to potential pandemic flu vaccines, they should not cooperate by sending out the viruses to WHO," said Suwit Wibulpolprasert, a senior public health official in Thailand's Ministry of Public Health, in a statement emailed to Reuters.

"Developing countries are having some doubts that WHO may be used as a socially credible intermediary organization to steal their viruses for commercial purposes.

"How can a vaccine firm develop a vaccine if it does not receive the virus from these countries? This is a global problem, not a local one, and should not be addressed by blaming the country that decided not to cooperate when they are treated unfairly."

INTERNATIONAL PROBLEM

But few others backed Indonesia's decision. Sharing of virus samples is crucial as it allows experts to study their make-up and map its evolution and the geographical spread of any particular strain.

Samples are also used to prepare vaccines.

"A virus is not something you can patent, it's not a product. If you use it to do business, it's not ethical. We're not talking business here, but saving lives in different countries affected by a virus," said William Chui, chief of pharmacy service at the Queen Mary Hospital in Hong Kong.

Although H5N1 bird flu remains essentially a bird disease, it has killed at least 166 people since late 2003, mostly in Asia, and experts fear it could trigger a pandemic once it learns to transmit efficiently between people.

It has flared up in recent months, spreading through poultry in Thailand, Japan, Vietnam and South Korea and killing six people in Indonesia. It turned up last weekend in a British turkey farm.

Experts stressed that this was a global matter and not a problem for Jakarta to solve unilaterally.

"The WHO must intervene, allocate vaccines, govern how it is charged and make sure companies don't profiteer. It is not an Indonesia-specific problem, it is a world issue," Chui said.

Channel NewsAsia 17 Feb 07
Indonesia to resume sending bird flu samples to WHO

JAKARTA : Indonesia agreed to resume sharing its bird flu virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO) Friday under condition that developing countries will have equal access to an affordable vaccine, officials from both sides said.

"We agree to responsible sharing practices and we're going to do it soon," Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari told reporters.

She said that a proposal would be drawn up that would be fair and guarantee access for any products resulting from the sharing of samples to other developing countries.

The country hardest-hit by bird flu is worried that large drug companies will use its H5N1 strain to make vaccines that will be too expensive for developing nations in the event of a global pandemic that could kill millions.

Jakarta drew criticism earlier this month when it said it would withhold samples of its bird flu virus from WHO unless an agreement was reached on commercial development of a vaccine.

"The (health) minister has assured WHO they would not hold WHO hostage to the virus," David Heymann, a top WHO bird flu official, said after talks Friday in the Indonesian capital with the Indonesian health minister and other senior government officials.

"They will share the virus for global public health services."

They said after the meeting that selected countries in the Asia-Pacific region would meet in March in Jakarta to identify mechanisms that would help ensure equitable access to influenza vaccine and its production.

"Until then, Indonesia will not share it," Supari said after the meeting.

Several countries are developing vaccines to protect against H5N1, the strain of bird flu responsible for 167 human deaths worldwide, including an Egyptian woman who died Friday.

More than one-third of the deaths have been in Indonesia. - CNA/ch

Yahoo News 20 Mar 07
WHO trying to get bird flu vaccine agreement
By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

World Health Organization officials said on Tuesday they are "scurrying" to reach an agreement that ensures developing countries most at risk from an influenza pandemic will get the vaccines they need.

Indonesia has put the issue on the front burner by saying it will only share samples of the H5N1 avian influenza virus if it has guarantees they will not be used to make vaccines that will profit a company or another country.

This worries scientists and health officials. "We need to be keeping tabs on this virus on a monthly basis," Dr. David Heymann, WHO's top bird flu official in Geneva, said in a telephone interview.

Officials in Indonesia, a developing country that is by far the nation worst hit by avian influenza with 66 deaths, fear it will be last on the list to get a vaccine against H5N1 should the disease evolve into a pandemic.

But WHO is careful not to criticize Indonesia. "We are really very grateful for what they have done even though it has made us scurry," Heymann said. "Indonesia's concerns are our concerns as well."

Sixteen manufacturers from 10 countries are developing prototype pandemic influenza vaccines against H5N1. WHO has called a meeting in Jakarta next week to sort out the best ways of making sure companies can make more vaccines against influenza, and that these vaccines will be available to all who need them.

In addition, WHO Director-General Dr. Margaret Chan will be meeting with the chief executive officers of companies that make vaccines. And the organization is also seeking advice from groups such as the GAVI Alliance, formerly known as the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization, a public-private group that concentrates on childhood vaccines in poor countries.

The H5N1 avian flu virus has killed 169 out of the 281 people known to have been infected. It has swept through poultry across Asia to Africa and Europe. Experts believe it could mutate into a form that would easily pass from one person to another, killing tens of millions in months.

ONLY ONE SOLUTION

A vaccine would be the only solution. But current vaccines only protect against very specific strains of flu -- there is no vaccine that works against all types of influenza.

Few companies make vaccines, and total world capacity is only about 300 million to 400 million doses of vaccine a year -- far below what would be needed in a pandemic. And it takes months to make a new flu vaccine, because current technology is ponderous.

The best hope for a vaccine against a new pandemic would be for all companies to get samples of the new virus as it emerges and to begin work immediately on a vaccine to fight it.

If countries do not share, it will only hold things up. "In the world there is not enough vaccine capacity to talk about equitable access. We need to increase production capacity," Heymann said. "That can only be done by transferring capacity to developing countries, as well."

In other words, helping them to build their own vaccine plants. Indonesia has discussed patenting its samples of virus to protect its interests, Heymann said.

WHO would discourage this, he said. "We are looking for free sharing of viruses, and assurances to developing countries that there will be mechanisms, that they do have a right to benefit from viruses that they share," he said.

One possibility is a "virtual" stockpile, "where industry agrees every time you make a new vaccine to put a certain amount aside for developing country use," Heymann said.

Channel NewsAsia 28 Mar 07
Indonesia lifts WHO bird flu samples ban

JAKARTA - Indonesia agreed on Tuesday to lift its ban on sharing bird flu samples with the World Health Organisation (WHO) after reaching an agreement in a long-running row over poor countries' access to vaccines.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Indonesia would start sending samples "immediately" to WHO laboratories after a deal was reached at international talks here. "We are going to send the virus samples immediately," she said.

The agreement came after two days of WHO talks involving several countries and organisations at which the world body agreed to develop a new mechanism on sample-sharing, the minister said.

"This is now more fair and transparent. The WHO will improve the mechanism," she said.

Indonesia announced in February that it had stopped sending samples to the WHO over concerns they would be used to develop costly vaccines beyond poorer countries' budgets. It asked for a legal guarantee that samples sent to international WHO reference laboratories for tests -- a process said to be key in fighting human flu -- will not be exploited for profit by drugs firms.

The minister said under the new mechanism, drugs firms would have to negotiate with the country producing the sample. A senior WHO official said the body would now bar pharmaceutical firms from accessing the samples. All financial arrangements would be negotiated between individual firms and countries, he said.

"The WHO will only send the virus to collaborating centres for study and keep the virus from industry," said David Heymann, assistant director general of communicable diseases. "The WHO will not get involved in financial arrangements. That will be agreed between the country and the company."

The deal will be finalised in June, but the Indonesian health minister said she trusted the WHO not to share samples with industry until then.

The analysis of human bird flu samples by WHO reference laboratories around the world is said to be key in detecting the emergence of a possible pandemic strain of human flu.

Indonesia last month entered a cooperation agreement with US company Baxter International to jointly develop a human bird flu vaccine, partly to try to ensure it benefits from any commercial treatment for the deadly virus.

Indonesia is the country worst hit by bird flu with 66 deaths confirmed from the disease. Another two people -- a 22-year-old student and a teenage boy -- died after testing positive for bird flu, and further tests are being carried out to confirm the cause of death, officials said Tuesday.

Most human cases have occurred after contact with sick birds. Indonesia has banned the popular practice of keeping chickens in backyards in the capital, Jakarta, in a bid to curb more human cases.

The WHO says the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu has infected 281 people and killed 169 of them, mostly in Southeast Asia. Scientists worry the H5N1 strain could mutate into a form easily spread among humans, leading to a global pandemic with the potential to kill millions.

The fear stems from the lessons of past influenza pandemics. One in 1918, just after the end of World War I, killed 20 million people worldwide. - AFP /ls
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