[Ip-health] Financial Times: Indonesia lifts bird flu sample ban

[Thiru Balasubramaniam]

Indonesia lifts bird flu sample ban

By Andrew Jack in Geneva

Published: May 16 2007 03:00 | Last updated: May 16 2007 03:00

Indonesia said yesterday it had resumed sharing samples of the H5N1
bird flu virus from infected humans with the World Health Organisation.

But it warned it would not allow pharmaceutical companies to use the
samples for vaccines unless they were swiftly and affordably made
available to the developing world.

Siti Fadillah Supari, the country's health minister, told delegates at
the annual World Health Assembly in Geneva that she had stopped sharing
virus samples with international researchers last December because the
WHO had passed on strains to other parties without -consent.

The move was the latest step in challenges to the WHO's framework for
disease control and intellectual property rights concerning medicines
in the developing world, with important implications for global health
and the pharmaceutical industry.

While stressing that Indonesia was not seeking royalties from vaccines
based on the strains it provided,the minister called themechanisms for
virus-sharing co-ordinated by theWHO "unfair" and said "developing
countries must be assured of equitable access".

She said any vaccine producers must pledge preferential pricing,
technology transfer and distribution to countries based on need not
wealth.

Her comments came as Indonesia introduced a resolution on sharing
viruses that would require "the transparent, fair and equitable sharing
of benefits" from vaccines developed from virus samples.

It said vaccines made from the viruses must be "affordable and readily
available in developing countries".

WHO representatives agreed that a drafting -committee would draw up
compromise proposals for approval before the end of the health assembly
next week.

The WHO has attempted to apply its existing long-standing procedures
for -seasonal flu to potential pandemic strains, which gives
international researchers and drug companies access to viruses that
emerge each year so they can be sequenced, made safe and used to
develop vaccines.

"The situation is unacceptable," Ms Siti Fadillah said. She said virus
strains provided by Indonesia to the WHO had been passed on without its
consent to -academic researchers who published their findings in
journals, and to commercial companies which then sought to patent their
work.

Other countries and pharmaceutical companies warned that the proposals
could discourage drug companies from developing new vaccines and slow
down the WHO's system for rapid international sharing of flu viruses.

"If we can't get the reference strains, we can't do the studies and we
can't develop the vaccines," warned Tony Colegate, scientific
co-ordinator for the pharmaceutical industry's Influenza Vaccine Supply
task force and an executive with Novartis -Vaccines.

He said a system for industry to contribute to international vaccine
stockpiles for developing countries could be a possibility but
expressed frustration that the vaccine industry was shut out from the
talks with the WHO.

Background

By John Aglionby in Jakarta

Indonesia is the country worst affected by bird flu with 76 deaths.

Triono Soendoro, its deputy health minister and architect of the
strategy of withholding samples, said Indonesia was not engaged in a
fight with the WHO. "Indonesia is working for the common good of
humanity, while others are just working for profit," he said. "We just
want to shine a light on something unacceptable." He said the new
system should include a mechanism whereby "if a novel virus emerges,
the WHO will be empowered to mobilise vaccines from around the world to
treat it".

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Thiru Balasubramaniam
Geneva Representative
Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)
voice +41.22.791.6727
fax +41.22.723.2988
mobile +41 76 508 0997
thiru@keionline.org