[Ip-health] Indonesia wants new vaccine sharing system

[martin khor]

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TWN Info Service on WTO and Trade Issues
23 February 2007
Third World Network

www.twnside.org.sg




Indonesia to share bird-flu samples only if there is new system

Below is updated news on Indonesia's measures relating to
sharing of bird-flu virus samples with WHO research centres.

After a meeting with WHO officials, the Indonesian Health Minister
has maintained that Indonesia will  continue withholding its bird flu
virus samples from foreign laboratories until there is a new global
mechanism for virus sharing that has better terms for developing
countries.

A meeting will be held in the region to discuss the equitable sharing
of benefits of vaccines.

With best wishes
Martin Khor
TWN

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Indonesia to share bird-flu samples only if there is new system
Published in SUNS #6195 dated 21 February 2007

By Martin Khor (TWN), 20 Feb 2007

The Indonesian Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has maintained that
Indonesia will continue withholding its bird flu virus samples from foreign
laboratories until there is a new global mechanism for virus
sharing that has better terms for developing countries.

She conveyed this message last Friday (16 February) to Indonesian media after a
meeting held with officials of the World Health Organisation.

The Indonesian daily, The Jakarta Post, quoted the Minister as saying: "Indonesia
will insist on a material transfer agreement before sending the Indonesian strain of
bird flu virus to foreign laboratories to prevent them from being used for
commercial purposes.

"We agree to send the virus to the WHO with new conditions or mechanisms
approved by both parties as well as by other developing countries. Until then, we
won't share the samples."

Siti also remarked that the WHO had often been in favour of capital owners. "The
organization sometimes forgets the good of the people in general and we want to
change that," she said.

The Jakarta Post report added that Indonesia and several developing countries
from the Asia Pacific region will meet in March to discuss a more equitable
mechanism for virus sharing and access to vaccine production.

The Health Minister met senior World Health Organization officials, including
acting assistant director general for communicable diseases David Heyman, acting
director for the Global Influenza Program, Keiji Fukuda, and WHO representative
to Indonesia George Peterson.

The comments of the Minister, after her meeting with the WHO officials, seem to
have a different shade of meaning than what she was purported to have said in a
WHO press release of 16 February.

According to the WHO release: "The Minister agrees that the responsible, free and
rapid sharing of influenza viruses with WHO, including H5N1, is necessary for
global public health security and will resume sharing viruses for this purpose.

"WHO will continue discussions and work with the Ministry of Health and other
countries to assess and develop potential mechanisms, including Material Transfer
Agreements, that could promote equitable distribution and availability of
pandemic influenza vaccines developed and produced from these viruses."

The Jakarta Post report implies that Indonesia will resume sharing the bird flu
virus only after a new and fair global mechanism for ensuring that developing
countries obtain equitable access to vaccines is in place.

Indonesia and several other Asian developing countries have been unhappy with
the present system under which WHO member states are obliged to share virus
samples with the WHO and its collaborating research centres, but there is no
regulation over the commercial use and patenting of these viruses.

When new vaccines or anti-viral drugs are produced, they are usually priced high,
and the developing countries, including those that donated the virus samples, are
unable to afford them. Health officials of several countries have been demanding
that a more equitable system of access to vaccines for the human version of bird
flu and other diseases be established.

Earlier this month, Indonesia signed an agreement with the US drug company
Baxter Healthcare to develop a human bird flu vaccine. Indonesia would provide
H5N1 virus samples while the company would provide it with technology and
expertise in vaccine production. As part of the agreement, the WHO and other
organizations would have access to the samples only if they agreed not to
distribute them to commercial companies.

The Jakarta Post has also published an interview with Triono Soendoro, Director
General of Indonesia's National Institute of Health Research and Development,
one of the main officials managing the issue, that throws more light on the events
leading to Indonesia's controversial actions.

The report, entitled "WHO must follow rules, like everyone else", revealed that
Indonesia stopped sharing its bird flu samples with the WHO after CSL, an
Australian drugmaker, developed and tried to market a vaccine using the
Indonesian strain of the virus without the Health Ministry's consent.

Soendoro said that several Indonesian laws regulate the sharing of virus
specimens. Each specimen that Indonesia sends abroad should be accompanied by
a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) which is internationally recognized.

"The agreement stipulates that the permission of the sending party is required if
the sample is to be developed for commercial purposes," he said. "It also states
that there should be a benefit-sharing scheme if it is to be used commercially.

"However, when bird flu broke out in 2005, health officials and scientists around
the world were in a panic. Because of the chaos in the global health world, the
MTA was scrapped in order to make sample sharing easier.

"Since then, every sample transfer was done based only on the trust that nobody
would violate the MTA. If we had insisted on using the MTA, many countries
might have accused us of being overly bureaucratic in the midst of a global health
scare."

Asked why Indonesia felt that it had been treated unfairly since there is no MTA
between Indonesia and the WHO, Soendoro said:  "We screamed when we heard
that an international company wanted to sell us the vaccine, which was developed
from our strain without our permission.

"Although there was no MTA at the time, they should have been more ethical. Just
because it's the WHO does not mean that they can violate the rules. There are only
four places where WHO Collaborating Centres are associated: London, Tokyo,
Atlanta and Melbourne. All were selected by the organization to do diagnoses or
research under the WHO."

Soendoro also remarked that the WHO Collaborating Centres "act like Santa
Claus. They are generous in sharing data. It has been a tradition over the decades
that a country with a seasonal flu gives out virus strains to whoever asks for it. In
Indonesia, we are concerned about bird flu because it has a higher risk of fatality,
with an average of eight deaths in 10 cases."

He said that Indonesia had decided to cooperate with Baxter as it was "the only
company that contacted us and was ready to follow all of our conditions. They
even agreed to sign the MTA agreement."

On the consequences of stopping the sharing of the bird flu samples, Soendoro
said many foreign media had criticized Indonesia because of its decision, "but
health officials and the media in Asia have supported us for our effort to ensure
fairness. We have no commercial interests; we want the whole world to benefit."

He added that the bird flu virus strain in Indonesia matters because 80% of bird flu
deaths have been caused by the distinct Indonesian virus. Producing a vaccine
from the local strain would protect other countries from the virus.

The health official concluded: "Based on scientific predictions, it's just a matter of
time before the next pandemic occurs. If every pharmaceutical company was
forced to produce the vaccine, they would still only be able to produce about 500
million doses. This means that only 250 million people in the world would receive
the vaccine, and Indonesia would get nothing."

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