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From: Feulin Yewup on 10 Aug 2008 12:26
"The vast majority of repeated avian flu outbreaks the past four
years, in both humans and poultry, have occurred in Indonesia."

"Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) -- first appeared in China
in 2002 but was not reported by Chinese officials until it spread to
four other nations."

Can the world continue to tolerate such immoral inaction?


---------------------------
" 'Sovereignty' That Risks Global Health"

By Richard Holbrooke and Laurie Garrett
Sunday, August 10, 2008; B07


Here's a concept you've probably never heard of: "viral sovereignty."
This extremely dangerous idea comes to us courtesy of Indonesia's
minister of health, Siti Fadilah Supari, who asserts that deadly
viruses are the sovereign property of individual nations -- even
though they cross borders and could pose a pandemic threat to all the
peoples of the world. So far "viral sovereignty" has been noted almost
exclusively by health experts. Political leaders around the world
should take note -- and take very strong action.

The vast majority of repeated avian flu outbreaks the past four years,
in both humans and poultry, have occurred in Indonesia. At least 53
types of H5N1 bird flu viruses have appeared in chickens and people
there, the World Health Organization has reported.

Yet, since 2005, Indonesia has shared with the WHO samples from only
two of the more than 135 people known to have been infected with H5N1
(110 of whom have died). Worse, Indonesia is no longer providing the
WHO with timely notification of bird flu outbreaks or human cases.
Since 2007, its government has openly defied International Health
Regulations and a host of other WHO agreements to which Indonesia is a
signatory.

Moreover, the Indonesian government is threatening to close down U.S.
Naval Medical Research Unit Two (NAMRU-2), a public health laboratory
staffed by Indonesians and U.S. military scientists. NAMRU-2 is one of
the world's best disease surveillance facilities, and it provides
health officials worldwide with vital, transparent information. The
Indonesian government has accused NAMRU-2 scientists of everything
from profiteering off its "sovereign" viruses to manufacturing the
H5N1 bird flu in an alleged biological warfare scheme. There is no
evidence to support these outlandish claims.

A year ago, Supari's assertions about "viral sovereignty" seemed to be
odd yet individual views. Disturbingly, however, the notion has
morphed into a global movement, fueled by self-destructive, anti-
Western sentiments. In May, Indian Health Minister A. Ramadoss
endorsed the concept in a dispute with Bangladesh. The Non-Aligned
Movement -- a 112-nation organization that is a survivor of the Cold
War era -- has agreed to consider formally endorsing the concept of
"viral sovereignty" at its November meeting.

Indonesia argues that a nation's right to control all information on
locally discovered viruses should be protected through the same
mechanisms that the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization uses to
guarantee poor countries' rights of ownership and patents on the seeds
of its indigenous plants. Under the FAO seed accord, a nation can
register plants, share their seeds and derive profits from products
made from the botanicals. This useful policy reduces exploitative
practices that sometimes enable multinational corporations and wealthy
governments to obtain outrageous profits from indigenous agriculture.

It is dangerous folly, however, to extend this policy to viruses. If
the concept of "viral sovereignty" had been applied to AIDS 25 years
ago, we would not have central repositories of thousands of varieties
of HIV today; these allow scientists to test drugs and vaccines
against all the different strains of the AIDS virus. It is even more
ludicrous to extend the sovereignty notion to viruses that, like flu,
can be carried across international borders by migratory birds.

In this age of globalization, failure to make viral samples open-
source risks allowing the emergence of a new strain of influenza that
could go unnoticed until it is capable of exacting the sort of toll
taken by the pandemic that killed tens of millions in 1918. As the
world learned with the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome
(SARS) -- which first appeared in China in 2002 but was not reported
by Chinese officials until it spread to four other nations -- globally
shared health risk demands absolute global transparency.

There is strong evidence from a variety of sources that forms of the
bird flu virus circulating in Indonesia are more virulent than those
elsewhere and in a few cases may have spread directly from one person
to another. The WHO has tried for two years to accommodate Indonesia,
without success. Under pressure from scientists worldwide, Indonesia
agreed in June to share genetic data on some of its viral samples but
not the actual microbes. Without access to the viruses, it is
impossible to verify the accuracy of such genetic information or to
make vaccines against the deadly microbes.

Outrageously, Supari has charged that the WHO would give any viruses
-- not just H5N1 -- to drug companies, which in turn would make
products designed to sicken poor people, in order "to prolong their
profitable business by selling new vaccines" (a charge oddly
reminiscent of the plot of John le Carré's novel "The Constant
Gardener"). The WHO has elicited pledges from the world's major drug
companies not to exploit international repositories of genetic data
for commercial benefit, but this has not satisfied Indonesia.

Indonesia's claim that NAMRU-2 is a biological weapons facility must
be confronted head-on. The U.S. ambassador in Indonesia, Cameron Hume,
is actively trying to prevent a catastrophe. So far, there has been
insufficient support from senior Washington officials. They must get
involved. And China, in particular, must use its substantial influence
with Jakarta on this issue -- in its own self-interest.

The failure to share potentially pandemic viral strains with world
health agencies is morally reprehensible. Allowing Indonesia and other
countries to turn this issue into another rich-poor, Islamic-Western
dispute would be tragic -- and could lead to a devastating health
crisis anywhere, at any time.

Richard Holbrooke is president of the Global Business Coalition on HIV/
AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. He writes a monthly column for The
Post. Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize winner for explanatory
journalism, is the senior fellow for global health at the Council on
Foreign Relations.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/08/AR2008080802919.html
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