Supari
revere | October 12, 2008I am still trying to retrieve my lower jaw from the floor, where it fell after reading this:
When Indonesia's health minister stopped sending bird flu viruses to a research laboratory in the U.S. for fear Washington could use them to make biological weapons, Defense Secretary Robert Gates laughed and called it "the nuttiest thing" he'd ever heard.
Yet deep inside an 86-page supplement to United States export regulations is a single sentence that bars U.S. exports of vaccines for avian bird flu and dozens of other viruses to five countries designated "state sponsors of terrorism."
The reason:…
revere | September 10, 2008We're well into September and flu season is approaching. Seasonal likely won't peak for another four or five months in the US and Europe but we should expect to start seeing cases in the northern hemisphere soon. A pandemic strain could happen at any time. The 1918 flu's second wave started in late August, so the timing of the start of a pandemic is not so predictable. At least one things seems certain, however. We shouldn't expect to see it starting in the current hot spot for human bird flu, Indonesia. Because the Indonesian government, in the person of Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari,…
revere | June 21, 2008The beach in Indonesia may look nice, but don't let that distract you:
There is an English word for deliberately neglecting to tell people something they have asked you about. It's called lying. On that basis, the Indonesian government, primarily in the person of their Minister of Health, Siti Fadillah Supari, are liars. They have publicly declared their intention to lie by announcing they will no longer notify the world promptly about new human cases of bird flu. The acknowledged motive is to improve the reputation of Indonesia in the eyes of the world. Currently the country is the world's…
revere | June 6, 2008The Indonesian Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has figured out how to deal with her country's reputation as being the bird flu capital of the world. She isn't going to announce deaths from the disease as they happen:
A 15-year-old girl died of bird flu last month, becoming Indonesia's 109th victim, but the government decided to keep the news quiet. It is part of a new policy aimed at improving the image of the nation hardest hit by the disease. Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said Thursday she will no longer announce deaths immediately after they are confirmed. But she promised to…
revere | April 15, 2008US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt, is in Indonesia to discuss matters of mutual interest with the Indonesian government. Topic number one was the Indonesian government's opt out of the international influenza surveillance system which has been in place for almost 60 years and provides vital information on what flu strains to include in the next year's seasonal flu shots. But the system is not limited to seasonal influenza and is an important part of the global surveillance of all influenza viruses that might be of human health concern, chiefly among the non-seasonal…
revere | March 25, 2008We've covered the Indonesian refusal to cooperate with international influenza surveillance system to a fare thee well (see posts posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and links therein), so this is just an update with some additional observations how Indonesia's deplorable behavior isn't that different than the US's deplorable behavior in the Middle East. First, Indonesia. When last we checked in Indonesia had sent off half a dozen flu specimens from the period after the end of January 2007 when it started its boycott. The hope was that the…
revere | March 2, 2008The Indonesian virus sharing impasse is said to be over, and with the dénouement comes some fascinating new information. Many will remember the row started when an Australian vaccine maker took an Indonesian viral isolate and made an experimental vaccine from it (see many posts among those here). At the time it was said the Indonesian Health Minister objected that her country would never be able to afford the vaccine and she therefore stopped making the virus available to WHO. WHO was the source of the seed strain used by the Australian company to make a prototype vaccine.
It turns out,…
revere | February 23, 2008Indonesia is providing bird flu specimens to WHO again. And Indonesian Health Minister Dr Siti Fadilah Supari has just published a book declaring the 50 year plus history of global influenza surveillance is part of a conspiracy by the developed world to control the rest of the world:
"Developed countries become richer because they have the capability to develop the vaccine and control the world," she writes.
Dr Supari also expresses alarm at WHO laboratories sharing bird flu virus data with the United States National Laboratory in Los Alamos, New Mexico, where nuclear weapons are developed.
"…
revere | January 21, 2008A report late last night by Helen Branswell alerted me to a tabulation from a new tracking system WHO is putting into place to answer demands from a number of member states in the developing world that there be more transparency in how isolates of avian influenza (bird flu) submitted to WHO are used and by whom. About a third of confirmed cases have been registered in Indonesia, although that country has provided less than a quarter of the isolates, a reflection of the refusal by the country's health minister, Dr. Siti Fadilah Supari, to provide any more specimens until matters of vaccine…
revere | December 20, 2007Nature's senior correspondent, Declan Butler, was one of the first to raise the profile of a pandemic threat in the scientific community and has had done some superb reporting since, including several stories on sharing gene sequences. The problematic actors in his earlier stories were respected scientists and the business-as-usual way they were approaching release of genetic sequences even as the world worried that the virus they were studying, influenza A, was inexorably searching for the right recipe to enhance its own raison d'etre, to make still more copies of itself, potentially with…
revere | December 5, 2007Indonesian Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has reiterated her refusal to share isolates of H5N1 virus (it's unclear if this is her decision alone or is the considered decision of the Indonesian government). This came at the current inter-minsterial conference on bird flu on underway in Delhi (how many of these conferences are there, anyway? It seems like every week there's another one.) Her demand is that every isolate have a Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) requiring a statement each time the isolate is shared with another laboratory, stating it is only for diagnostic purposes and not…
revere | November 26, 2007Indonesia's health minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has answered the question whether the recently concluded Geneva summit on sharing of influenza viruses had produced sufficient agreement to induce that country to begin sharing again. Her answer seems to be "no":
Indonesia's health minister reiterated Sunday that she would not send bird flu specimens to the World Health Organization, saying poor nations needed assurances that any pandemic vaccines developed from the virus would be affordable.
Siti Fadilah Supari made the comments on her return from Geneva, where the WHO held an…
revere | November 22, 2007We have an on-the-ground view of the critical influenza virus sharing summit, provided by Ed Hammond in Geneva. I am promoting his comment thread notes from earlier today and a fuller account from late in the evening on Wednesday (Geneva time) sent me by email. It is clear that the atmosphere is tense and not convivial.
First, if you haven't been following the issue here or elsewhere, here's a bit of background from an excellent piece at Intellectual Property Watch (h/t Agitant):
The politically explosive issue of ensuring everyone benefits from vaccines in the event of an influenza pandemic…
revere | November 21, 2007The first day of the scheduled four day showdown in Geneva over sharing bird flu virus isolates is now over. What seems to have been accomplished is statements of opening positions. How moveable everyone is remains to be seen, as does whether there is an Alexander the Great around to cut the Gordian Knot (you can see the strands of the knot in some of our previous posts, for example (chronologically) here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here).
Here is Reuter's version of Day 1:
Indonesia, the nation worst hit by bird flu with 91 human deaths,…
revere | November 20, 2007If a rogue H5N1 virus easiy tansmissible between people is to develop, the most plausible spot for it to happen is Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous with a vast reservoir of infected poultry (and who knows what else) and more human cases (113) and more deaths (91) than any other country. But Indonesia still refuses to share its human H5N1 isolates, contending they get nothing tangible from an arrangement which is likely to lead to vaccines they won't be able to afford. Under the current system, which allows intellectual property rights to cover vaccines developed from WHO supplied…
revere | September 4, 2007Recently we posted on the paper by scientists at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and University of Washington (Seattle) reporting a new statistical tool for evaluating the likelihood that a cluster of bird flu cases in a small geographic area was spread from person to person or the result of a common source, usually poultry. Two clusters were looked at, one in Turkey and the other in Indonesia (the so-called Karo cluster). It is fairly well established there was human to human transmission in this cluster, as there has been in others. It makes sense. If a person can become infected by…
revere | June 1, 2007The world's five decade influenza surveillance system can be added as more collateral damage to George W. Bush's Global War on Everybody he Doesn't Like:
Anti-US sentiment contributed to Indonesia's success in leading developing countries to push the U.N. health body into agreeing to change a 50-year-old influenza virus-sharing system, the health minister said.
Iran, Iraq, Cuba, North Korea, Bolivia and Myanmar were among the 23 countries supporting Indonesia's argument that the existing system of unconditional sample-sharing was unfair to poorer nations, because they could not afford…
revere | May 20, 2007Indonesia's Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, has joined WHO's Executive Board.
The Detikcom news website reports Siti Fadilah Supari has been elected unanimously during the 60th World Health Assembly meeting in Geneva,
The health minister says the nomination represents world recognition and appreciation of Indonesia's active role in coping with global health problems. (Radio Australia)
Sort of like George Bush giving the Medal of Freedom to the architects of the Iraq War, I guess.
I had a hard time deciding what tag to put on this, although "Humor? (sarcasm)" seemed the most appropriate…
revere | May 15, 2007Indonesia has just registered its 76th death and 95th case of bird flu, making it the country with more of each than any other nation. Not that you would know it by looking at the current WHO count of confirmed cases. That's because Indonesia hasn't sent WHO any viral isolates for confirmation since January. We've covered this too often to repeat the details (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here for some background), but the issue is now front and center in this week's World Health Assembly, the official governing body of WHO convened in Geneva:
The issue of sharing…
revere | May 2, 2007China 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…