[Ip-health] NYTimes: WHO should encourage vaccine production transfer

[Peter Maybarduk]

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[ Picked text/plain from multipart/alternative ]
NYTimes
February 16, 2007
EDITORIAL
Indonesia=92s Avian Flu Holdout

Indonesia sent a chill through the World Health Organization recently
when it refused to supply any more samples of the avian flu virus
that has killed scores of its people. The move, which seemed aimed at
gaining access to vaccines at an affordable price, threatens the
global effort to track the virus and develop vaccines. But Indonesia
has raised a valid point that needs to be addressed: if a pandemic
should strike, poor countries would be left without protection.

The W.H.O. relies on a global network of laboratories to provide
virus samples so experts can determine which are most likely to
spread. These strains are then used to develop the seed stocks that
are given =97 at no cost =97 to manufacturers to use in making vaccines.

In a typical flu season, the key strains emerge from Asia, while the
vaccines are sold primarily in the West. This has not caused a ruckus
because most developing countries consider influenza one of their
lesser health threats. But with rising fears of an avian flu
pandemic, the dynamic has changed.

Indonesia decided to act after a foreign company announced work on a
vaccine that would be based on its samples. Indonesia stopped
cooperating with the W.H.O. and started negotiations to send future
samples to another vaccine maker in return for technology that would
allow Indonesia to make its own vaccine.

That may be good for Indonesia but could be harmful to global health
=97 especially if other countries follow. Clearly Indonesia, which is
in discussion with W.H.O. officials, needs to rejoin the global
network. Unfortunately, the W.H.O. has no good answer to the
inequities Indonesia has spotlighted.

If a pandemic struck, the current vaccine makers could produce only
500 million doses of vaccine per year if they ran 24 hours a day.
That is far short of what would be needed to vaccinate all 6.7
billion people in the world. Thus there seems no doubt that in a
crisis, the countries that are home to the vaccine makers would tend
to their own citizens first =97 or those willing to pay the highest
prices =97 leaving little or no vaccine for everyone else.

The W.H.O. needs to work much harder to encourage the transfer of
vaccine production technology to countries, like Indonesia, that have
the technical ability to use it. That will increase the supply of
vaccine and presumably bring prices down. Even then, we fear, there
still won=92t be enough.