Is Indonesia Going too Far by Still Refusing to Share Bird Flu Virus Samples?

Indonesia has borne the brunt of the avian influenza (bird flu) with more than 50pct of the victims coming from this Asian nation. But the country’s health ministry still adamantly refuses to share virus samples with WHO under the pretext of “global conspiracies” meant to harm developing countries like itself.

However, sharing such virus samples with the world’s health regulatory body can definitely help develop a vaccine before the virus further mutates and becomes transmissible between humans.

Indonesia stopped sharing the samples with the World Health Organisation (WHO) in December 2006 on fears pharmaceutical companies would use them to make vaccines that are too expensive for poor countries.

The initial move by Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari earned international plaudits for taking on an unfair global system, but with WHO negotiations at an impasse, Supari's increasing belligerence is raising alarm.

The minister has broadened her critique of an "unfair, neocolonialist" global health system, raising the possibility earlier this year the United States was using the virus to develop biological weapons in her book "It's Time for the World to Change: Divine Hands Behind Avian Influenza."

Supari told a rapturous crowd at a book discussion last week that rich nations were creating "new viruses" and sending them to developing nations in order create markets for drug companies to sell vaccines.

"Indonesia sends a virus to the WHO but suddenly it ends up with the US government. Then the US government turns the virus into dollars and we don't know what kind of research," Supari said.