Wed Apr 30, 4:49 AM ET Scientists work at the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit-2
(NAMRU-2) in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, April 30, 2008.
The U.S. Navy has long maintained the biological laboratory
in Indonesia which has studied the bird flu virus to aid in
the country's efforts to stop the disease before it becomes
widespread. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) Wed Apr 30, 4:48 AM ET A scientist works at the U.S. Naval Medical Research
Unit-2 (NAMRU-2) in Jakarta, Indonesia, Wednesday, April 30,
2008. The U.S. Navy has long maintained the biological
laboratory in Indonesia which has studied the bird flu virus
to aid in the country's efforts to stop the disease before
it becomes widespread. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara) Tue, 22 Apr 2008 8:23 AM PDT Image: Biomedical researcher prepares specimens for
laboratory experiments at the U.S. Naval Medical Research
Unit No. 3 in Silver Spring, Maryland WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Talks between Indonesia and the
United States over the future of a U.S. naval medical lab
have become entangled in an international dispute over how
to share crucial bird flu samples, U.S. Health and Human
Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said on Monday. He said Indonesian health officials are refusing to share
samples of H5N1 avian influenza virus with the rest of the
world. Meanwhile, negotiations over the future of the lab
were also being held up. "There is very little question that our lack of progress
of getting that laboratory MOU (memorandum of understanding)
renewed is connected to this," Leavitt told reporters. Indonesian officials have said they only want to ensure
equal access to any vaccine that are made against bird flu
but Leavitt said they were also seeking payments. The lab, the U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 or
NAMRU-2 for short, was central to Indonesia's early efforts
to track H5N1. It was one of the few labs globally capable
of the genetic analysis needed to identify H5N1 at the
beginning of the epidemic, which started in 2003. The agreement between the United States and Indonesia
allowing NAMRU-2 to operate in Jakarta expired two years ago
and has not been renewed. "If there is anyone in the world who is advantaged by
having the best scientific minds in the world, having access
to this, it's Indonesia," Leavitt said. Bird flu is still mostly affecting poultry across Asia,
the Middle East, Africa and Europe. It only occasionally
jumps to humans and has killed 240 out of the 381 infected
since 2003, the World Health Organization says. Indonesia has been especially affected by human H5N1
infections, with 132 reported cases and 107 deaths. Experts fear the virus will mutate enough to pass easily
from one human being to another. If it did, it could cause a
pandemic that could kill tens of millions of people
globally. NEEDED SURVEILLANCE WHO said surveillance is key and asks affected countries
to share samples of the virus regularly. These shared
samples can also be used to make experimental vaccines. But Indonesia fears pharmaceutical company may use
samples of Indonesian virus to make a highly profitable
vaccine that might not even be available to Indonesians. Bayu Krisnamurthi, head of a national commission dealing
with avian flu, said in March that Indonesia would only send
virus samples on a case-by-case basis until a new
virus-sharing mechanism currently being drawn up by the WHO
took effect. Talks hosted by WHO last November in Geneva failed to
reach an agreement on a new virus-sharing system. Leavitt, just back in Washington from a trip to
Indonesia, Singapore and Vietnam, said he met with
Indonesian health minister Siti Fadillah Supari but they
failed to agree. "Minister Supari recently issued orders to prohibit
Indonesian institutions from providing tissue samples to
NAMRU-2," Leavitt wrote in his blog. "Her action is obviously linked to her global initiative
to seek specific benefits for sharing samples." Leavitt foresaw little immediate progress. "The minister's main point is that what she wants should
not be considered 'royalties' or 'compensation'," Leavitt
said. "What she says she wants is for the contributing
countries to be eligible for some share of the value
commercial companies create out of the influenza samples
they provide." (Editing by Will Dunham and Alan Elsner) Thu May 1, 11:55 PM ET A security guard at the US Naval Medical Research Unit -
2 laboratory in Jakarta. (AFP/Jewel Samad) (INDONESIA) (BIRD
FLU) JAKARTA (AFP) - The future of a major US Navy research
laboratory in Indonesia is in doubt amid allegations,
dismissed as "crazy" by US diplomats, of espionage and
secret experiments. Negotiations between Washington and Jakarta over the
renewal of the operating contract of US Naval Medical
Research Unit-2, or Namru-2, have stalled over a range of
issues including diplomatic immunity for its US staff. Established in Indonesia in 1970 and charged with
researching infectious diseases of military importance, the
facility employs 19 Americans and more than 100 Indonesians
and is based in Indonesian health ministry grounds. Its operations have attracted suspicion from a number of
quarters in the world's largest Muslim country, from anti-US
religious hardliners to outspoken Health Minister Siti
Fadilah Supari and Defence Minister Juwono Sudarsono. "We'll conduct some checks on their presence in
Indonesia," Vice President Jusuf Kalla said after Friday
prayers last week. Supari, whose ministry has worked with the US laboratory
on projects including malaria research and bird flu early
warning systems, has thrown fuel on to the diplomatic
fire. "Until today there have been no significantly useful
results for the people (from Namru-2's research)," she said
last month. "Problems with contagious diseases such as malaria and
dengue fever are still relatively the same... My people ask
me why is there a health laboratory working together with a
foreign military?" Some parliamentarians have demanded the laboratory's
operating contract, which expired in 2005, be torn up and
its facilities taken over by Jakarta. Parliamentary foreign affairs commissioner Mutamimul Ula
called Thursday for an "investigation into allegations that
Namru-2 staffers were involved in intelligence
operations." "There is this flavour of intelligence activities... This
can't be avoided in the eyes of the public. It is part of
the defence organism of a foreign country," Ula said. The controversy and the delays in the renewal of the
contract appear to be causing a degree of angst among US
officials in the departments of health and state, reflecting
the importance Washington attaches to the facility. Namru-2 has been a major point of US-Indonesian
cooperation over the years, including times when relations
over other issues were strained. US President George W. Bush
mentioned the facility in a joint statement with Indonesian
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when he visited Jakarta
in 2006. Apparently stung by the latest whirlwind of allegations,
some of which stretch back several years, the US embassy has
issued a statement entitled "The Truth About Namru-2." "There's been rumours over the last 10 years that we had
to respond to," US embassy deputy chief of mission John A.
Heffern told AFP. "It's just crazy," he said of the allegations of spying
and secret experiments, adding that Namru-2 was "totally
unclassified, totally transparent." "If the Indonesian ministry of health wants the raw data,
it's totally open to them," he said. "Hopefully we will resume our negotiations. This doesn't
help." Sticking points in the negotiations have included the
US's insistence that all American staff at the laboratory be
given diplomatic immunity. Complicating matters is a separate dispute between
Washington and Jakarta over bird flu samples. Jakarta is insisting on "the recognition of sovereign
rights of states over their biological resources," and fears
the flu samples will be used by foreign companies to make
vaccines, which will be too expensive for Indonesians. US officials have slammed the position, with US Secretary
of Health and Human Services Michael Leavitt recently
stressing the importance of international cooperation to
tackle the bird flu threat. "The United States has very important relationships here
in Indonesia, that involve joint work in laboratories in
various levels of research, and we have pledged to continue
that," Leavitt said after meeting Yudhoyono last month. Indonesia has the highest number of human bird flu
victims, with 108 people known to have died in the sprawling
archipelago from the disease. The World Health Organisation, which has designated
Namru-2 as a Collaborating Centre on disease research, has
warned that Indonesia is putting its own population in
danger by failing to share its samples. by Stephen Coates
U.S. Naval Medical Research Labs
U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 3 in Cairo,
Egypt
U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit No. 2 in Jakarta,
Indonesia
U.S. Army Medical Research Unit in Nairobi, Kenya
U.S. Naval Medical Research Center in Lima, Peru
U.S. Army Armed Forces Research Institute of Medical
Sciences in Bangkok, Thailand
U.S. says Indonesia stalling in talks on U.S. naval
medical lab
US Navy research lab under microscope in Indonesia