On Feb 16, Indonesian Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari informed senior World Health Organisation (WHO) officials that her country would continue withholding its bird flu virus samples from WHO's collaborating centres pending a new global mechanism for virus sharing that had better terms for developing countries.

In breaking with the existing practice of freely sending flu virus samples to these laboratories, she expressed dissatisfaction with a system which obliged WHO member-states to share virus samples with collaborating centres, but which lacked mechanisms for equitable sharing of benefits, most importantly affordable vaccines developed from these viral source materials by patent-seeking commercial entities.

To consolidate regional support for this initiative, a meeting of Asia-Pacific developing countries was convened in late March to explore mechanisms for more equitable access to vaccines produced from virus sharing arrangements. The Indonesian decision elicited unease, but also sympathy from a cross-section of the global community, including an editorial from The Lancet .