Re: Indonesia increases risk by failing to share bird flu samples: WHO
The subject of the thread is the (human) Indonesian samples and the history of these samples is pretty well known and it is as follows.
The initial human samples were collected by NAMRU-2 who distributed the samples to Hong Kong and CDC (both are WHO reference labs). Thus, between August 2005 (first human sample) and September? 2006, WHO had both samples and sequences.
The sequences were at the WHO secret database and were not public. The labs blamed the Indonesian government and the government position was largely confused (because bird sequences were public, and WHO had both samples and sequences, so the rationale for withhold the sequence data really made no sense - and in all likelihood, the blaming of the Indonesian government was just cover for the hoarding of sequences by the sequencing labs, which was due to publication issues).
The cover was blown, when the Indonesian government publicly said they had nothing to hide and the sequences should be released. Within minutes the sequences were public, because Los Alamos simply removed the password protection from the Indonesian sequences in the WHO private database. Thus, in the fall of 2006, the WHO private database was no longer an issue with regard to Indonesian sequences (human or bird).
Indonesia stopped sending samples to Hong Kong, but did send samples to CDC, who published the human sequences.
A new issue arose on the use of the samples for vaccine targets. The Indonesian government was concerned that expensive vaccines would be made against the Indonesian isolates (from the human samples), so they wanted to limit others from using the samples as vaccine targets. As a result, Indonesia stopped sending out samples, leaving everyone in the dark about the H5N1 evolution in humans in Indonesia.
Consequently, WHO has been trying to get an agreement and release of samples. So far the agreement is iffy, and only three samples were sent (to another WHO reference lab in Japan). The three samples did not have live H5N1, so WHO still has no targets and the three samples were from 2 patients and there have been MANY more than 2 cases since mid January, so WHO is still in the dark on recent H5N1 evolution, and they still have no samples more recent than early January, 2007.
Thus, there is no indication that WHO has much of anything, anywhere representing 2007 human sequences (although they have some bird samples sequenced in Australia, but made public) and there is no indication that Indonesia is giving human samples to anyone, other than possibly Baxter, with whom they have a commercial agreement to develop vaccines.
Thus, bringing in other databases (secret or public) or petitions or who knows what really just creates confusion on an issue between the Indonesian government and vaccine makers, with WHO acting as an intermediate.
This thread is VERY confused because of the introduction of multiple and VERY distinct issues.
The subject of the thread is the (human) Indonesian samples and the history of these samples is pretty well known and it is as follows.
The initial human samples were collected by NAMRU-2 who distributed the samples to Hong Kong and CDC (both are WHO reference labs). Thus, between August 2005 (first human sample) and September? 2006, WHO had both samples and sequences.
The sequences were at the WHO secret database and were not public. The labs blamed the Indonesian government and the government position was largely confused (because bird sequences were public, and WHO had both samples and sequences, so the rationale for withhold the sequence data really made no sense - and in all likelihood, the blaming of the Indonesian government was just cover for the hoarding of sequences by the sequencing labs, which was due to publication issues).
The cover was blown, when the Indonesian government publicly said they had nothing to hide and the sequences should be released. Within minutes the sequences were public, because Los Alamos simply removed the password protection from the Indonesian sequences in the WHO private database. Thus, in the fall of 2006, the WHO private database was no longer an issue with regard to Indonesian sequences (human or bird).
Indonesia stopped sending samples to Hong Kong, but did send samples to CDC, who published the human sequences.
A new issue arose on the use of the samples for vaccine targets. The Indonesian government was concerned that expensive vaccines would be made against the Indonesian isolates (from the human samples), so they wanted to limit others from using the samples as vaccine targets. As a result, Indonesia stopped sending out samples, leaving everyone in the dark about the H5N1 evolution in humans in Indonesia.
Consequently, WHO has been trying to get an agreement and release of samples. So far the agreement is iffy, and only three samples were sent (to another WHO reference lab in Japan). The three samples did not have live H5N1, so WHO still has no targets and the three samples were from 2 patients and there have been MANY more than 2 cases since mid January, so WHO is still in the dark on recent H5N1 evolution, and they still have no samples more recent than early January, 2007.
Thus, there is no indication that WHO has much of anything, anywhere representing 2007 human sequences (although they have some bird samples sequenced in Australia, but made public) and there is no indication that Indonesia is giving human samples to anyone, other than possibly Baxter, with whom they have a commercial agreement to develop vaccines.
Thus, bringing in other databases (secret or public) or petitions or who knows what really just creates confusion on an issue between the Indonesian government and vaccine makers, with WHO acting as an intermediate.
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