A FOUR-year dispute ended with an all-night bargaining session in Geneva, Switzerland, on Saturday, as rich and poor countries and big pharma agreed a deal to share virus samples and vaccines in a bid to fight flu pandemics.
The deal, which makes part of the world’s voluntary system for monitoring flu legally binding, must be approved by world health ministers in May.
Vaccine production depends on countries sharing virus samples with a network of labs that report to the World Health Organization. In 2007, Indonesia, then a hotspot for H5N1 bird flu, stopped exporting samples, saying that they would be used to make vaccines which countries like Indonesia could not afford.
That confrontation has now led to an agreement under which poor countries will get help accessing vaccines and antiviral drugs in return for providing virus samples. The industry has reportedly promised to help such countries monitor viruses, and to use 10 per cent of manufacturing capacity to supply them with cheap or free drugs and vaccines. But the key, according to a WHO analysis, will be to increase the vaccine supply. It is not yet clear if this week’s agreement will do that.
More on these topics: