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andung's Hassan Sadikin General Hospital and Padjadjaran University (Unpad) have been ordered to immediately cease all cooperation on dengue research with the US Naval Medical Research Unit (Namru) 2.

The cooperation will end in October, despite the fact the government suspended in June 2008 a negotiation on the lab's operation in Jakarta, after an agreement on its continued presence in the country expired in 2005.

The ever-controversial Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari was furious at Unpad rector Ganjar Kurnia and Medical School dean Eri Surachman.

"I want this to be ceased, because *the cooperation with Namru 2* has been stopped since 2008," she said Monday, during an unscheduled visit to Cicendo Eye Hospital in Bandung.

"There should be no more clandestine research."

She added her ministry had ordered a halt to all activities by Namru 2 since April 2008.

"Researchers conducting clandestine cooperation with Namru 2 will be punished severely," she said.

"Namru 2 is still closed, pending a memorandum of understanding between the Foreign Ministry and the US State Department."

Eri admitted there were three to four Unpad doctors still involved in research on dengue fever at the lab, which was being managed through the Health Ministry's Research and Development Agency (Balitbangkes) in Jakarta.

"We have now closed that down and retrieved the equipment," he said.

"Namru understands the situation."

He refused to divulge the value of the cooperation, saying the researchers feared they could be fined if they stopped the research being conducted at Hassan Sadikin General Hospital's lab on Jl. Eijkman.

"All specimens were being studied at the laboratory on Jl. Eijkman, and none were brought or sent abroad," he said.

Hospital director Cissy Rachiana Prawira said the research was done by the hospital's internists through an MoU with Balitbangkes and Namru.

She added these internists were also Eri's subordinates.

"The agreement was renewed in October 2008 and will expire this October," she said.

"Previously, similar cooperation was conducted from 2000 to 2004, and from 2006 to 2008."

Cissy said the researchers had taken blood samples from workers at three textile factories in Bandung and studied the samples at the laboratory.

"We stopped the research in April, after I issued a memo following the minister's accusations that there was still research being conducted in cooperation with Namru," she said.

There has been no official comment on the issue from the US Embassy.

"We don't have any comment about this cooperation right now. Thanks," US Embassy assistant press attache Stafford A. Ward told The Jakarta Post by SMS.

Lilian Budianto contributed to the report from Jakarta.