Must have been an oversight...

WSJA: China Acknowledges Not Giving WHO Bird Flu Samples

BEIJING (Dow Jones)--China acknowledged it hasn't given the World Health Organization any bird flu samples taken from poultry since 2004, blaming the long delay on talks over the protocol for how to hand over the virus to international labs.

"When viral strains cross international borders, special protocols are needed and we are working to finish them," vice director of the Ministry of Agriculture's veterinary department Li Jinxiang said Tuesday. International scientists say they need the bird flu samples from poultry to study the development of the H5N1 virus that causes avian flu and to help make drugs and vaccines to fight the disease.

They're also crucial to tracking any changes that could make bird flu easy to catch from human-to-human contact, a transformation that could turn it into a pandemic capable of killing millions.

Already, more than 100 people have been killed since 2003, most, if not all, from contact with infected birds. In March, China promised to hand over poultry samples to the World Health Organization.

China has shared strains of the bird flu virus found in humans, but hasn't shared any samples taken from animals since 2004, when it provided samples from five animals. "There are no real logistical reasons why the (poultry) virus can't be shared," said Julie Hall, coordinator for the WHO Epidemic Alert and Response Team in Beijing.

"The Ministry of Health regularly shares (the human) H5N1 with us. The logistics are there to transport these safely and quickly." Li said that though the Ministry of Agriculture hasn't shared samples from poultry, it has shared the results of laboratory tests, including genetic information, with international agencies. Critics say that's not enough.

They accuse the Ministry of Agriculture of dragging its feet in order to protect Chinese scientists who are working on coming up with a vaccine or cure and could lose their competitive edge if that information was made widely available.

The WHO is under fire by some scientists who say it isn't being transparent enough with information about the virus. Advocates for opening up the WHO's research database, which is now tightly restricted, say that lack of information is slowing the search for a cure.

Li said China had vaccinated nearly 5 billion poultry in the first six months of this year, and that authorities were monitoring for any signs of resistance to vaccines. He said there were some problems reaching more remote parts of China for vaccinations, as cross contamination with wild birds continues to cause outbreaks.

-By Shai Oster, The Wall Street Journal Asia; (8610) 6588 5848; shai.oster@wsj.com