More on Indonesia refusals to share bird flu samples with WHO
The AP reports that Indonesia is refusing to share bird flu virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO) unless they sign an agreement saying it WILL NOT be used to develop an “expensive vaccine”.
While I understand that Indonesia does not want to have pay high prices for a vaccine that may be developed in the future, this seems short sighted. Indonesia is not the only source of the samples and if a major pharma companies wants to get samples, I’m am sure there are other options and other countries. The only reason Indonesia is important is because they seem to have more cases and those cases need to be tracked to determine how the virus may be mutating.
This is a major change from previous understandings where nations share information for public health purposes. One of the reasons WHO has an interest there is Indonesia is a likely center for any future pandemic since it is heavily populated and many people live in close proximity to birds. THis refusal to share seems to put the Indonesian people at even more risk if something should occur.
Technorati Tags: avian flu, bird flu, Indonesia, WHO
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