Jakarta argues that the prevailing system allows drug firms to use these samples to make vaccines that developing countries often cannot afford, reports Indonesia’s Trade and Investment News, quoting Reuters.  

Triono Soendoro, director general of the National Institute of Health Research and Development, told Reuters the WHO must help Indonesia draft a "material transfer agreement" specifying the virus samples would be used only for diagnostic purposes and not for commercial gain.

"Until it is resolved, sending specimens to WHO collaborating centers will not be resumed," Soendoro said.

The requirement for having an agreement for transferring virus samples and limited use of the samples for diagnostic purposes is also implicit under Indonesia's 1992 health law, he added.

Indonesia said last week it would only share its H5N1 samples with those agreeing not to use them commercially. The announcement came as it signed a preliminary agreement with a unit of pharmaceutical firm Baxter International Inc.

Under the pact the health ministry's research and development institute will supply the US firm with specimens of H5N1, while Baxter will provide technology to help develop a vaccine. Indonesia would have the right to produce and market the bird flu vaccine domestically. It is negotiating to export it to a number of countries.

Asked if Indonesia would share the virus strain and allow other drug makers to produce a vaccine for the rest of the world if a pandemic started in Indonesia, Soendoro said it would.

"We are not standing in the way. There's nothing exclusive with Baxter. If they want it, they just have to talk us. "If necessary, we will donate them to the poorest nations. What we don't want when the pandemic strikes, (is for) the vaccine being traded (commercially)," he added.
 
Soendoro said Indonesia would start a clinical trial of a human bird flu vaccine using its H5N1 strain between March and April this year. It plans to produce two million dosages of bird flu vaccine, if the vaccine-making process is successful.