The death toll from swine flu is mounting. But in one respect we can count ourselves lucky: The virus originated in Mexico, a country that quickly shared samples with the World Health Organization. Scientists in the United States and Australia are already working on developing a vaccine.
Such cooperation may seem like a no-brainer in the face of a potential global pandemic. But some countries don't see it that way. Consider the case of Indonesia, which in 2006 refused to share critical samples of avian influenza with the world health body, jeopardizing efforts to create a vaccine.
At issue here is a long-running debate about patents on vaccines developed by private companies in response to pandemic diseases. In the days immediately following the discovery of swine flu, international activists have called for generic flu vaccines to be licensed for manufacture in developing countries. They have regularly attacked drug patents on the grounds that they keep treatments out of the hands of poor people by allowing patent holders to charge high prices. Representatives from the Third World Network, a group based in Malaysia, have stated access to vaccines "is going to become a problem" and that developing countries will need "access to technology". This mindset has encouraged some countries to stop sharing the virus samples that make the research possible.
Most seriously, in 2006 Indonesia's Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari asserted that the country owned the "genetic resources" of the sovereign state. She protested that the WHO was providing virus samples to pharmaceutical companies which then developed vaccines, patented them and made profits without any compensation to the virus-providing nation. To "right" this "wrong", Indonesia stopped sharing samples.
Indonesia's underlying worry has been access to the vaccines these companies develop. According to Dr. Supari, part of the problem is that once the WHO is supplied with the sample, "originating countries do not have any right about the destiny of the shared viruses". Indonesia also complained that the limited supply of vaccines was then being bought up by developed countries, with nothing left over for poorer countries.
Indonesia's concern is understandable, and officials of many other countries have expressed similar views, including Cuba and India. According to WHO data, vaccines are distributed to at least one in five people in the U.S., Canada, Western Europe, Russia and Australia. By contrast in most developing countries it is less than one in 20. But the solution is to find ways of making vaccines accessible after they're developed -- not to undermine the intellectual property rights, and the international cooperation, that allow vaccines to be developed in the first place.
As it is, Indonesia's withholding exposed the international community to significant risks, and was built on the false premise that patents act as a barrier to access to vaccines. In reality, the vast majority of medicines and vaccines are developed by private companies. These companies do so because they are afforded patent rights. Without patents the commercial incentive for the development of a vaccine does not exist.
Fortunately in March 2007 the Indonesian government resumed virus sharing, on the condition that an international agreement be negotiated to increase vaccine stockpiles and potential licensing for patented vaccines for developing countries. Those negotiations are ongoing. But the dangers posed by this misguided thinking on patents and virus-sharing remains. Without private-sector support, governments will be left owning viruses in pandemics, but not the vaccinations to protect people. And that will be a real public-health disaster.
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