It was rather astonishing to read The Washington Post op-ed article entitled Sovereignty That Risks Global Health (Aug. 10) by Richard Holbrooke and Laurie Garrett that was reprinted by The Jakarta Post last week.
I personally know Richard Holbrooke from my years as former Indonesian Ambassador to the United Nations in New York and expected him to know better than what he has expressed in the op-ed.
The article merged the two separate issues of H5N1 virus sharing and the legal problem of Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 into a confusing unrelated issue. While the avian influenza problem lies within the authority of the Ministry of Health, the Namru facility issue is jointly managed by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense.
The article made a number of factual mistakes and misleading statements, some of which I will enumerate below.
The existing World Health Organization (WHO) system of sharing influenza viruses, called the Global Influenza Surveillance Network, is not transparent, just nor equitable. The system takes resources from developing countries and provides little to them in return while leaving developing countries all the more vulnerable to an influenza pandemic.
Indonesia and other countries that have taken the initiative to reform the WHO system are taking a laudable and a long-overdue step in improving public health for all by providing, among other things, fair and equitable access to the influenza vaccine at affordable prices.
No constituency currently seeks to create a "viral sovereignty", for such a de facto sovereignty already exists in international law. Inexplicably, Holbrooke and Garret misled their readers by simply ignoring the fact that in its 20 years of existence the Convention on Biological Diversity, among other international instruments, has recognized national sovereignty over genetic resources, including microbes.
Viruses are, unequivocally, genetic resources subject to national sovereignty. In addition, the World Intellectual Property Rights Organization did establish an inter-governmental forum to explore the possible instruments for Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources and Traditional Cultural Expressions/Folklore.
Holbrooke and Garrett claim that it is "ludicrous" to apply sovereignty to genetic resources that easily cross borders. Their position belies ignorance of both biodiversity and its related law and policy. As any farmer, biologist or duck hunter can tell you, most genetic resources do, in fact, cross national borders: Birds, plants, insects, microbes, crops and practically anything else that is made of DNA (or, as in the case of flu, RNA).
This simple biological truth has not prevented the exercise of sovereignty nor ceased international cooperation in the use and protection of biodiversity. Trans-boundary biodiversity issues have been addressed and discussed at length for over two decades by the United Nations. Diplomats assigned to New York and those familiar with issues of public health ought to be clearly aware of this pervasive topic. However, Holbrooke and Garrett apparently have no clue about this -- otherwise they would not have made such off-base assertions.
They also further stated that "the WHO has elicited pledges from the world's major drug companies not to exploit international repositories of genetic data for commercial benefit". Such pledges, even if they existed in the form claimed, are contradicted by fact.
First of all, a number of companies have lodged U.S. and international patent claims over hundreds of H5N1 genetic sequences, resources that were freely given to WHO by Indonesia and other countries. These resources come from the gene repositories.
Second, major pharmaceutical companies are engaged in advanced clinical trials that are currently underway by utilizing Indonesian, Vietnamese and other viruses in vaccines. One vaccine that used a Vietnamese strain has already been licensed. These companies intend to profit from the sales of these vaccines while Indonesia and many other resource donor countries will receive nothing from the proceeds.
This is a great injustice and the fact is that industry, large and small, massively benefits from the resources within the WHO system while no commensurate benefits accrue to Indonesia and other countries who, ironically, are facing the gravest immediate threat from H5N1.
Furthermore, the revised International Health Regulations do not require viruses to be sent to WHO. Though the revised regulations mandate the sharing of information on disease outbreaks of international importance, the fact is that such information is already shared and will continue to be shared.
The authors further allege that Indonesia has violated "a host of other WHO agreements". Exactly what agreements were they referring to? As former Indonesian Ambassador to the United Nations and other international organizations in Geneva, I have directly participated in WHO negotiations whereby the intricate issues of influenza virus sharing were intensively discussed and I myself unaware of any such allegations.
In reality, Indonesia has repeatedly offered to provide more virus samples to WHO. Neither Indonesia, nor its Health Minister Dr. Siti Fadillah Supari, are intrinsically opposed to providing viruses. Rather, the stumbling block is an unwillingness of some countries to implement a just Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) in defining the rights of parties when viruses are transferred.
The underlying proposition that Garrett and Holbrooke rail against in their editorial is that Indonesia and other countries are asking for a reasonable MTA for influenza viruses -- one that doesn't rob anybody -- and for an unbiased WHO.
Those agreements are far more restrictive than anything that Indonesia or its allies have proposed for sharing their viruses. If the current generous stance embraced by developing countries is not appreciated, then perhaps developing countries should follow suit in restricting virus transfers similar to the manner done by U.S. institutions. Such a response would clearly be counterproductive.
The writer is former Indonesian Ambassador to the United Nations in New York and in Geneva, and is currently lecturer on Diplomacy at Paramadina University and lecturer on International Law at Atma Jaya University, Indonesia.
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