US govt criticizes Indonesia over H5N1 samples

The US Secretary of Health and Human Services, Michael Leavitt, has criticized Indonesia's government for its refusal to share avian influenza samples. The US official's position mirrors that of the World Health Organization (Marketletters passim). However, the fact that most of the world's major drug companies are headquartered in the USA and, according to Indonesia's Health Minister, Siti Fadilah Supari, have most to gain commercially from the development of a vaccine against a pandemic flu outbreak, makes it likely that the call will not be well received.

Mr Leavitt told the Associated Press, while on a tour of Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam, that "if Indonesia decides not to be a part of the world community and the international mainstream on this for a time, that would be regrettable."

In March, the US Embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, was forced to deny conspiracy theories circulating in the capital that H5N1 samples were being collected by the US military for the development of biological weapons (Marketletter March 24).