China has now agreed to send WHO bird flu isolates, but Indonesia, after first agreeing to do so, won't. Or is it the other way around? It's easy to get mixed up because China has made this promise before (posts here, here and here) and so has Indonesia. Whatever.
Indonesia's health minister has accused the World Health Organization of breaking its promise to assure that the country's bird flu samples would not be used commercially, dragging out a dispute about equal access to a future vaccine.Siti Fadilah Supari said late Monday Indonesia was ready to resume the supply of specimens, but had postponed doing so after recent talks in Geneva with the world body on technical details "ended in deadlock."
"I am afraid to send (the samples) because we have not seen WHO's commitment assuring not to hurt us," Supari told The Associated Press.
Health officials from the nation hardest hit by bird flu say it's unfair for the WHO to simply hand over their H5N1 viruses to drug companies, arguing any vaccine produced from their specimens would likely be too expensive for the poor.
"The WHO did not show any good will," Supari said. "We are disappointed. They do whatever suits them." (AP)
I'm not privy to what was or was not promised by WHO, but it sounded pretty straightforward. WHO wouldn't turn the isolates over to commercial companies without Indonesia's consent. This isn't ideal because vaccine manufacturers need seed strains to work with, but at least WHO and some scientists would have access to the virus and its biological and genetic characteristics could be monitored while the world gets its vaccine act together. So if there was more to the agreement than that, the Indon health minister should say what went wrong, not just complain.
Meanwhile it isn't clear that the Chinese have fulfilled their oft repeated promise, either. The US is a rogue nation when it comes to Iraq. China and Indonesia are rogue nations when it comes to pandemic influenza.
How much irresponsibility can the world stand?
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Now theres the question of the day Revere..... We go via bomb or bug is the end result for both.
"China and Indonesia are rogue nations when it comes to pandemic influenza."
Boy, you said it. Beijing's stubborn opposition to Taiwan's participation in the WHO (which is afraid of inviting Taiwanese experts to technical-level meetings for fear of angering China) and its flakiness in sharing flu strains have made it a public health threat unto itself.
The rest of the WHO will have the chance to make a point when it gets the opportunity to discuss Taiwan's observership at the WHA next month. As distasteful as mixing politics and public health is, allowing Taiwan to participate will do much to put China in its place. I'm sure Taiwan's 23 million wouldn't mind seeing that.
Be warned, this is pure speculation.
When things like that happen, I always want to know what is it that they are REALLY fighting over. And it's never what they tell you in the media.
Add to that an understanding of the chronic horse-trading in all the UN agencies that pretends to be 'conducting business', ie it's always about if I give you this, you need to give me THAT, where the THAT can bear minimal relations to what they are supposed to be negotiating about, then you might begin to have an idea.
If I was to narrow the field, and assume what they are fighting over DOES have bear some relations to BF, then the prize (or prizes, as is the case) that is up for grabs round about now is....drum rolls please....
Who will sit on the emergency committee that will advise the WHO when to declare a pandemic alert phase change after June 15, 2007, when the current Pandemic Task Force will be disbanded at the 'coming-into-force' of the IHR(2005)?
From this link http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/notes/2006/np28/en/index.html
"The Task Force is a temporary body which will advise WHO until the International Health Regulations 2005 (IHR) come into force on 15 June 2007. At that time, an emergency committee will be convened if and when needed to advise WHO on disease events of international public health importance..."
Interesting SusanC, like it.
Irresponsibility or ignorance revere? In my eye the latter. It's (as SusanC eluded to), I, my, me, mine scenario anymore.
In response to MRK, and it sounds horrifying however, I'll take the bug over the bomb. The bug would be a wake-up call where the bomb, well, people are used to that now. Rhetorical question: How long have wars been going on now and what has been learned?
China and Indonesia are simply following what they percieve as the best way to safeguard their interests.
Its well and good for us to criticise the Indonesian's and Chinese for not sharing their samples, but we do so from the position of people who are going to benefit enormously from their gratuity. From the Indonesian perspective, developed nations are the only ones who are really benefiting from isolate sharing, given that they have the capacity to use the information (whereas the developing nations do not). Couple this with the essentially self-serving pandemic policies of the developed nations (who are stockpiling antivirals for largely ineffective 'homeland' defense) and you see that there is little incentive to give away your only bargaining chip.
While it may be a public health no-no for China and Indonesia to restrict access to bird flu isolates - it's politically understandable. They aren't (or atleast think they aren't) going to benefit much from the free flow of this information, whereas the developed nations have much to lose. If I was in their position, I might be contemplating some sort of blackmail as well...
Jon: We've covered this pretthy often here. We understand Indonesia's point and are sympathetic to it, although their proposed "solution" is not a solution at all. They will only earn the enmity of the rest of the world and not gain any protection of their own. They are asking for something which it is not possible to give, considering the global capacity to produce vaccine. But it shouldn't be hard to work out the demand that WHO not share the isolates with commercial entities, so it sounds like there are additional demands.
China has no excuse. They have a strong vaccine sector. They are not comparable in any way to Indon.
Revere: agreed about China, my comments were written with Indonesia in mind. And, realising that I'm new to teh comment pages here, I don't wish to re-hash things already discussed (feel free to
You are exactly right about vaccine capacity, and that there are probably additional demands. What has to be remembered is that Indonesia needs to see some gain from this because at present they aren't getting any from sharing samples. My supposition would be that they are after bilateral aid to help them compensate their poultry industry. That's not something the WHO can give them; but by denying samples to the WHO, they create leverage against other regional states and bodies which they would otherwise not have.
The ethos of sharing samples is predicated on the assumption that it helps everyone equally. I'd argue that this is simply not the case (in fact, influenza vaccines are the health equivalent of trickle-down economics. Once this imbalance becomes established in the minds of the disadvantaged then reactions such as the Indonesian one (and the one a certain Thai WHO rep flaunted recently) are inevitable.
Which is why the regional vaccine production facilities are a really good idea that needs to be championed by those who already have substantive vaccine capacity. Because, THEY, help everyone at the same time.