Indonesia will share bird flu viruses for vaccine production

Indonesia says it will resume sharing viruses for.the benefit of global public health security following a meeting between the Minister of Health of Indonesia Siti Fadillah Supari, and Dr David Heymann, WHO acting assistant director-general for Communicable Diseases.

The country had announced intensions to stop sharing of influenza viruses, including H5N1, because it believed any vaccines produced by western pharmaceutical companies would be inaccessible to Indonesians due to high prices.

During the meeting, the two men discussed the sharing of influenza viruses with the WHO Network of Collaborating Centres for Influenza.

Indonesia's leadership has, meanwhile, alerted the international community to the needs of developing countries to benefit from sharing virus samples, including access to quality pandemic vaccines at affordable prices.

The Minister of Health recognizes that both short term and long term solutions are needed for countries such as Indonesia to strengthen its capacity to protect itself against threats such as pandemic influenza.

In the short term, Indonesia will pursue discussions with vaccine production companies to meet its vaccine needs. In the long term, Indonesia is working with WHO to develop its local vaccine production capacity through technology transfer. Both WHO and the Ministry of Health of Indonesia agree that local capacity to produce vaccines is the long term solution to ensuring availability and access to influenza pandemic vaccine.

WHO and MOH have jointly decided to convene a meeting of selected countries in the Asia and Pacific region to identify mechanisms for equitable access to influenza vaccine and production.