Bird flu vaccine: benefit to developing countries
R. PRASAD
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They will also have access to vaccines during a pandemic
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— Photo: AP
WORST AFFECTED: Indonesia is the hardest hit in the world with 63 deaths.
IF THE `non-cooperation movement' conceived by Mahatma Gandhi helped him to fight the British during India's freedom struggle, Indonesia, which took a leaf out of his book, used this weapon to take on the World Health Organisation and the developed nations in its struggle to gain access to vaccines produced using its bird flu samples in case of a pandemic. And it has succeeded.
With 63 human deaths from bird flu, as on 11 April, Indonesia ranks as the worst affected country in the world. The number of infected people has also gone up and stands at 81.
That is no good news. And the fact that the country has the dubious distinction of being an epicentre for bird flu outbreaks and emergence of new H5N1 strains makes it even worse.
New strains evolving
With new strains being continually produced, the emergence of a mutant that is capable of causing a pandemic cannot be ruled out. Hence studying the continuously evolving H5N1 virus and producing vaccines that can be used during a pandemic become very important.
Getting bird flu samples from Southeast Asian countries, particularly Indonesia, is the first and most important step. And Indonesia did share its samples with the WHO.
Samples shared with the WHO are accessible both by researchers and pharmaceutical companies. Producing vaccines using samples obtained from countries such as Indonesia, per se, is not wrong.
But what is indeed unfortunate is that countries that have supplied the samples will seldom stand to benefit during a pandemic.
That is because, in all likelihood, drug companies based in the developed countries and not those in the countries that have supplied the samples will be the producers of the vaccines.Therein arise all the problems.
Export prohibited
"... Those [developed] countries [in Europe] have laws prohibiting the export of vaccine in a pandemic before their own citizens are served," pointed out New Scientist (March 27, 2007). And there is a good example in the swine flu scare in the U.S. in 1976 to illustrate this.
Dr. Margarat Chan, the Director General of the WHO had brought out the reality of the situation during a meeting in Geneva recently to find out ways of increasing access to H5N1 vaccines by developing countries during a pandemic.
"Faced with a universal threat, each country will look after itself, at least in the immediate pandemic period. This is a natural behaviour of governments," Dr. Chan noted.
The great irony
So where does all this lead to? Indonesia shares its genetic information with the WHO, and during a pandemic, the developed countries, where drug companies that produce the vaccines are based, hoard the vaccines for their people, while Indonesia gets none to protect its citizens who are dying in thousands. "This mechanism [where export during a pandemic is prohibited] is not fair to developing countries. A mechanism like that is more dangerous than the threat of an H5N1 pandemic itself," Siti Fadilah Supari, Indonesia's Health Minister was quoted as saying in New Scientist.
So with no incentive for sharing its samples, Indonesia made it conditional that its samples be used only for research and not commercial purposes. The WHO permitted access to data to only 15 research laboratories.
But amidst protests, Indonesia relented, and in August last year it permitted global access to its data for research. Commercial use was still out of bounds. Then came the news of an Australian company, CSL, submitting its vaccine based on Indonesia's sample for regulatory approval. It had got the sample from the WHO. And that proved to be the last straw for Indonesia.
No sample sharing
It exercised what it felt was the only option left — it stopped sharing its samples with the WHO this January.
"Self-defence is no crime," screamed an Editorial in New Scientist. It went further to say: "Withholding H5N1 samples is the only way Indonesia can protect its people."
This is a perfect example of a small developing country standing up against a world body and developed countries. And it did it even when its people were continuing to get infected and dying from bird flu infection.
That brought the WHO, developed countries, and pharmaceutical companies based there to their knees. A crisis meeting was held in Jakarta in March by the WHO to resolve the deadlock. And Indonesia stood its ground — it wanted a new sample sharing mechanism that would favour the developing countries during a pandemic.
And it got what it demanded.
On March 25, the WHO, countries affected by bird flu, vaccine manufacturers in the developing and developed countries, and donor countries agreed to create a global stockpiling of vaccines and develop a mechanism to provide access to vaccines by developing countries in the event of a pandemic.
Indonesia will ever be remembered for exposing the inequity of the sample sharing mechanism and making vaccines accessible by even the developing countries when a pandemic strikes.
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