Recently, there has been a heated debate over the issue of whether a country infected with a pandemic virus effectively has "sovereignty" or property rights over samples of that virus taken from infected persons within its territorial jurisdiction.

This issue was initially raised by Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari at the 60th World Heath Assembly in May 2007, and again at numerous WHO meetings on avian flu virus sharing and benefit sharing which have taken place recently in Geneva.

Indonesia observed that global activities concerning influenza control had been largely directed at industrialized nations -- mainly for their profit-oriented influenza-related pharmaceutical industries, most of which are based in those countries.

And Indonesia was disappointed to find that these vaccine manufacturers used Indonesian specimens for commercial purposes without first obtaining permission to do so or acknowledging that the benefits of their findings would go beyond the mere confirmation of the virus and/or research purposes for which the samples were submitted in the first place.

Therefore, it is fair to say that unless the benefits derived from the specimens are shared, the current framework for the sharing of viruses is not equitable with the countries that submit virus samples; this is especially true of cases such as Indonesia, where the H5N1 virus is active and where the damage from it (to humans and animals) has been greatest.

And the WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network (GISN) actually facilitates this unjust, non-transparent and inequitable process.

On the other hand, the global community is facing an unprecedented opportunity to develop and produce a pandemic vaccine. As part of efforts undertaken, the ongoing risk assessment for the influenza virus has necessitated particular attention and research to determine potential vaccine strains and their likely geographical spread.

Currently, fewer than 10 countries have domestic companies engaged in the production of pandemic vaccines. This is certainly not an area in which a small number of players is in the public interest.

Clearly, the more companies available to work and collaborate in this field, the greater the opportunity of developing interventions thus increasing the likelihood of producing a more effective and affordable vaccine.

Furthermore, at present 90 percent of the production capacity for all influenza vaccines is concentrated in Europe and North America. This percentage, it should be recalled, consists of countries that account for only 10 percent of the world's population.

The WHO estimates the current global manufacturing capacity (estimated at 400 million doses of regular trivalent influenza vaccine per year, when produced by 5 international manufacturers) would be utterly inadequate to meet expected global needs (at least 6 billion doses of vaccine) during a pandemic situation.

If the right to carry out this work is restricted to companies located in only a few countries (for the sake of argument, those that are industrialized), in the event of a pandemic the majority of developing countries might have little or no access to vaccines during the first wave, and possibly throughout its duration.

This situation would thereafter engender an explosive increase in the price of a vaccine, rendering it unaffordable for entire populations in any but developed countries.

As we have already seen, the vaccination of poultry and poultry workers in the most affected countries is already barely affordable, while they serve as perhaps the most important target groups for preventing the spread of the virus to the wider population.

Therefore, aside from considerations relating to the injustice of the selective use of the virus, the current virus-sharing pattern also entails an ethical and moral dilemma.

The best way to describe this is perhaps to use the simple analogy of a situation whereby a bike is borrowed from someone and later painted a different color and modified slightly. Can the borrower later call that bike his own and then sell it back to the original owner quoting a higher price?

"Viral sovereignty" does not mean affected countries are not willing to share virus samples with the WHO system or other individual countries or institutions. Rather it provides for the right of countries infected by the virus to decide whether it will be researched by its own laboratories or submitted to other parties, the right to information on the movements of these virus samples, and the rights to a share benefits.

In this regard, Indonesia declared it would only share H5N1 virus samples with parties who agreed not to use them for commercial purposes, and who would provide benefits sharing from the virus for global influenza pandemic preparedness, and who accepted the Material Transfer Agreement (MTA) -- as required by Indonesian national laws and regulations.

During the "vacuum" period of the international virus sharing mechanism, Indonesia sent virus samples in 2007 to parties who accepted Indonesia's requirements.

Since January 2007, Indonesia has developed a new Bio Safety Laboratory 3 (BSL-3) with an international license to monitor and detect the development of potential pandemic influenza viruses.

Through this laboratory, research for risk assessment on pandemic influenza can now be conducted within Indonesia and by Indonesian experts.

This means global health security will not be at risk, and therefore it is misleading to assume that "sovereignty of viruses" would cause major conflicts or be a potential trigger for a new north-south or rich-poor dichotomy.

The writers are both Indonesian diplomats based in Geneva, Switzerland. The views expressed herein are their own.

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