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  Channel NewsAsia 15 Apr 07
Indonesia's bird flu policy centre stage at WHO assembly

GENEVA : A damaging dispute with Indonesia over bird flu research took centre stage on Monday at the World Health Organisation's assembly, which was also marred by wrangling over Taiwan's unsuccessful membership bid. Indonesia - the country worst affected by H5N1 bird flu this year - stopped sharing virus samples with foreign laboratories last December, a practice that is regarded as crucial for research on vaccines and preventing a pandemic.

Jakarta fears that multinational drug companies could use the samples to develop vaccines that poorer countries would be unable to afford, and has vowed to bring its demand for changes to the international practice to the assembly.

However, there were signs as the meeting of health ministers and officials opened in Geneva that Indonesia would come under strong pressure over the next 10 days.

The United States urged countries to share bird flu virus samples "without pre-conditions."

"We continue to call on countries everywhere to share influenza samples openly and rapidly, without pre-conditions," US Health Secretary Mike Leavitt told journalists. "No nation can go it alone, all nations have a responsibility," Leavitt said.

A senior Indonesian health official said last week that Indonesia would urge WHO members to scrap the existing policy on sample sharing during the assembly.

Leavitt said: "In the past few months, the media buzz about bird flu has died down, but the H5N1 strain of avian influenza has not." "It remains a serious danger that we must all face together," he added.

On Monday, an Indonesian health ministry official in Jakarta confirmed that an Indonesian woman had died of the H5N1 strain, taking the country's death toll from the virus to 76.

The WHO is hopeful that a durable solution will be found to the dispute at its assembly of 193 nations, following an agreement by Indonesia in March to resume sample sharing.

But samples have still not been sent, partly because Indonesia insists a verbal commitment to develop a new mechanism is not enough.

The chairwoman of the assembly, Australian health official Jane Halton, called for a constructive solution that balanced global public health interests, the need for commercial development of vaccines and the "legitimate desire for all countries for affordable access... to protect their populations."

"I hope this will lead to all countries continuing to participate in the WHO's influenza strain sharing system," she added.

Indonesia was due to make its speech on Monday, but it was postponed for a day - along with a key policy-setting address by WHO Director General Margaret Chan - after procedural wrangling over Taiwan's membership bid dragged on.

An overwhelming majority of the member states eventually followed their decade-long rebuff of Taiwan's observer status by closing the door on the Asian island's request for full-blown membership of the UN health agency.

Some 148 of the member states present or allowed to vote effectively rejected consideration of the bid. Seventeen countries supported Taiwan, mainly small Pacific and Caribbean island states, along with three African countries and three Latin American nations. Two countries abstained. European countries and major powers, including the United States, opposed Taiwan's bid, although they supported closer ties and cooperation on health issues with the island.

Taiwan was evicted from the agency in 1972, a year after losing the "China" seat in the United Nations to Beijing. Beijing considers the island part of its sovereign territory awaiting reunification. - AFP/de
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