Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari addresses the 60th World Health Assembly at the United Nations headquarters in Geneva May 15, 2007. Siti Fadillah Supari said Indonesia will resume sharing bird flu virus samples with the World Health Organization (WHO).(Xinhua/Reuters Photo)

BEIJING, May 16 (Xinhuanet) -- After refusing to share H5N1 avian flu viruses with it since the start of the year, Indonesia has resumed sending samples of the deadly virus to the World Health Organization (WHO), according to media reports Wednesday.

    "I am pleased to inform you that, last week, Indonesia resumed sending H5N1 virus specimens to the WHO Collaborating Centre in Tokyo," said Health Minister Siti Fadillah Supari.

    "In doing so, we hope that we can trust the WHO and its collaborating centres to share this sense of responsibility, to prevent any misuse of the samples by Indonesia and other countries, and to ensuring a mechanism for the responsible sharing of these viruses from originating countries," she said.

    Supari, who is demanding equitable access to affordable H5N1 vaccine for developing countries, placed a motion calling for a new system of virus sharing, one which affords more rights to countries that provide virus samples to the WHO system.

     The resolution was endorsed by 17 countries, including Algeria, Laos, Malaysia, Peru, Iraq and DPRK.

    The World Health Organization needs ongoing samples from H5N1-affected countries to monitor the evolution of the virus. That work looks for signs of mutations that might suggest the virus is acquiring the ability to more easily infect people or is becoming resistant to flu drugs such at oseltamivir (sold as Tamiflu).

    Poor countries provide virus samples that are used to develop commercial vaccines, but often cannot afford to buy the vaccines, said Supari.

    "There is an unfair mechanism in which avian flu virus samples are provided free by developing countries but drug companies patented this vaccine and are selling them at unaffordable cost for the developing countries."

    "Sequences had been used for some parties for instance through research presentation, publication, commercialization, and request for patents without our consent. Such practice violates the spirit in which virus is given."

    In Indonesia, 75 people have died from the H5N1, according to WHO. The government stopped sharing virus samples with international laboratories in December, saying it felt exploited by multinational drug companies.

    Keiji Fukuda of the WHO's global influenza program said steps are being taken to improve transparency and equity. A new formula for sharing samples and the benefits is due by the end of June.

    Avian flu remains largely an infection in birds. Since 2003, the H5N1 strain has infected at least 282 people worldwide and killed about 170 of them, mostly in Southeast Asia, according to WHO.

    (Agencies)