JAKARTA (AP): Indonesia's health minister reiterated Sunday that she would not send bird flu specimens to the World Health Organization, saying poor nations needed assurances that any pandemic vaccines developed from the virus would be affordable.
Siti Fadilah Supari made the comments on her return from Geneva, where the WHO held an intergovernmental conference aimed at rebuilding a global system for sharing flu viruses following a months-long standoff with Indonesia.
"The meeting failed to come up with a material of transfer agreement," she told reporters in the city of Bandung. "So we have no obligation to send bird flu virus samples to the World Health Organization."
Indonesia has been harder hit by the H5N1 bird flu virus than any other country in the world, accounting for 91 of the 206 known human deaths from the virus. Vietnam ranks second with 46 deaths, and Thailand third with 17.
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