WHO Says Indonesia's Refusal To Share Live H5N1 Samples Puts World "At Risk"

The World Health Organisation is still demanding Indonesia hand over recent samples of the live H5N1 virus collected during operations to control bird flu outbreaks. By not doing so, the WHO says, the "entire planet" is being put at risk.

But Jakarta says it is still not happy with agreements that Indonesia will get equal and inexpensive access to any vaccines created from its samples :

Indonesia has yet to resume sharing samples from human bird flu victims with the World Health Organization, jeopardizing not o­nly the Asian nation but the entire planet, the UN health agency said Monday.

David Heymann, the assistant director-general for communicable diseases at WHO, said the agency had received three specimens from Jakarta in May, but none contained any live virus.

"What's important is that all countries share viruses that they isolate from humans," Heymann said.

"By not sharing the viruses, Indonesia is ... putting in danger its own populations, because if those viruses are not freely shared with industry, vaccines will not contain the elements of the Indonesia infections. The second thing that Indonesia is doing is therefore putting the whole world at risk."

Indonesia—the nation hit hardest by the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu—stopped sharing its samples with international scientists searching for mutations early this year because Jakarta wanted assurances that any vaccines developed would not be too expensive for developing nations.

It ended its boycott in May, however, after receiving assurances from WHO that the virus samples would be used for risk assessment and not passed o­n to private pharmaceutical companies without Jakarta's permission.

China—which had not shared H5N1 specimens with WHO for almost a year—sent bird flu samples in June. Vietnam has sent samples but has encountered shipping road blocks, Heymann said.

Jakarta Says It Will Not Share New Virus Samples Until A New Agreement Is In Place

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Bird Flu Virus Already Mutating, Closed Door Conference Told

From Reuters :

The deadly H5N1 form of the bird flu virus is rapidly mutating and the world must be on guard even though the disease has yet to be transmitted between humans, experts told a meeting in Beijing, Chinese media said on Tuesday.

"The experts said that despite there being no evidence yet of human-to-human transmission of bird flu, the highly pathogenic H5N1 form of the virus is continuing to rapidly mutate, and human infections keep happening," the Health News reported.

The closed door conference, attended by experts from the Chinese and U.S. centres for disease control and the World Health Organisation among others, opened on Monday, the official newspaper of the Chinese Health Ministry reported.

The report provided no other details, except that the meeting will discuss bird flu vaccines.

The H5N1 virus remains mainly a virus of birds, but experts fear it could change into a form easily transmitted from person to person and sweep the world, killing millions within weeks or months.

So far, most human cases can be traced to direct or indirect contact with infected birds. China has not reported a poultry outbreak since Sept. 20 last year, though earlier this month the health ministry confirmed a man in the eastern province of Anhui had contracted bird flu but subsequently recovered.

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