Indonesia Demanding Exclusive Rights to Sell Vaccine
Thursday, 01 March, 2007 | 16:08 WIB

TEMPO Interactive, Jakarta: The government is demanding the exclusive rights to market bird flu vaccines, which have been manufactured based on genetic samples of H5N1 virus found in Indonesia.

This was specified, according to Todung Mulya Lubis, the lawyer of the Department of Health, in the draft of the material transfer agreement (MTA) that it prepared.

Anther proposed condition was that there must be technology transfer from vaccine-producer countries based on Indonesia's virus strain as well as appreciation of the intellectual property rights of the vaccines.

“We are asking exclusive rights to market the vaccines in Indonesia and ASEAN countries,” Todung told Tempo.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said she felt a MTA should be prepared because she pointed out some countries, such as Australia, have manufactured bird flu vaccines based on virus samples that Indonesia submitted to the World Health Organization (WHO).

These vaccines were then sold in Indonesia at a high price, while in fact the samples were only intended for scientific examination instead of being commercialized.

Based on this, Minister Siti has halted distribution of virus samples until the WHO signs this MTA.

However, she acknowledged that the WHO has recently urged Indonesia to transfer the samples soon, albeit the MTA is yet to be signed.

“They said that it was important to ship the virus samples first,” Siti told Tempo at the Parliamentary complex yesterday (02/28).

According to Siti, the government has only asked the WTO to sign a statement that the virus samples will not be commercialized for vaccine manufacturing but the WHO has refused.

According to Todung, the WHO did not acknowledge the MTA as it feels every country is allowed to produce vaccines based on other countries’ virus strains.

However, the rule is considered to be discriminative towards country where the virus originated.

“We will refuse if, in the future, vaccines are sold expensively in Indonesia,” he said.

The bottom line was that, said Todung, the government wanted to cooperate with the WHO, especially as bird flu has become a global issue.

PRAMONO