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Biosecurity Briefing
No Agreement Reached between WHO and Indonesia on Sharing H5N1 Samples By Kunal Rambhia, November 30, 2007 On November 26, 2007, Reuters reported that last week’s talks held by the World Health Organization (WHO) in Geneva failed to yield an agreement from the Republic of Indonesia to resume sharing H5N1 influenza virus samples. Indonesia, which has reported a total of 91 human deaths from H5N1, has withheld virus samples from the WHO labs since August 2007 because the WHO could not ensure developing countries "equitable sharing of benefits arising from the use of viruses."1 According to Reuters, no agreement was reached because the WHO could not guarantee that it will provide a material transfer agreement (MTA) “that specifies the sample is used for diagnostic purposes and not for commercial gain.” According to the article, this specific request remains the main obstacle to an agreement that would establish a new virus sharing policy for all 191 members of the WHO. An Indonesian health official told Reuters that "talks hit a deadlock because the [Indonesian] health minister was relentless in pushing for a material transfer agreement for each virus sample, but not everyone agreed to that." The Reuters article states that although Indonesian authorities “hope that negotiations will continue…one thing remains unnegotiable…[Indonesia] will not send samples overseas without an MTA."1 As previously reported by the Biosecurity Briefing, the WHO has stressed that having access to Indonesia’s virus samples is critical to the study of mutations that affect drug resistance and transmissibility. According to an article by David Fidler in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, Indonesia’s stance calls into question the application of treaties such as the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and International Health Regulations (IHR) adopted in 2005 by the WHO. The author notes that although the World Health Assembly (WHA) resolved to share viruses and specimens in a timely manner, it also resolved to make sure any benefits that result were transparent, fair, and equally distributed. However, WHO has acknowledged “that patents had been sought on modified versions of influenza (H5N1) samples shared through the [WHO’s] Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) without the consent of the countries that supplied the samples.” Moreover... “pharmaceutical companies in industrialized countries then obtained free access to such samples, exploited them, and patented the resulting products, which the developing countries could not afford.”2 It seems unlikely that Indonesia will resume sharing its samples until it receives assurance from WHO that any products developed will be made affordable to developing countries. References
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