The government yesterday blamed the "prolonged delay" in sharing bird flu
samples on procedural problems faced by the importer designated by the World
Health Organization.
"The China National Avian Influenza Reference Laboratory has already prepared
the 20 samples as required by the WHO-designated lab of the Centres for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States," a Ministry of Agriculture
spokesman said.
But the US lab has not yet completed import procedures, causing an indefinite
delay in the shipment of the virus, the spokesman said.
The US Embassy in Beijing was not immediately available for comment.
On Tuesday, Julie Hall, a WHO official in Beijing, said "the logistical
arrangements are there to ship those viruses" and questioned the delay.
A ministry official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the government
is committed to sharing bird flu information and virus samples with the
international community, and had provided five live poultry viruses to the WHO
in 2004.
But the WHO made the samples available to foreign researchers who twice
published the genetic sequence and other data of four of the five samples
without giving credit to Chinese scientists who made the genetic sequencing and
done an analysis.
Both the WHO and the researchers apologized to the ministry for the
incidents, according to the official and Hall.
In February, the WHO and the ministry reached an agreement under which China
would share bird flu samples by transferring them from the ministry's lab to
WHO-linked labs.
In line with the arrangement, the ministry helped the Chinese lab complete
all the formalities for the export of the 20 virus samples to the CDC lab, the
official said.
But the ministry's lab learned from the US lab that the US Government allows
the import of only undiagnosed samples; while those to be shipped by China are
diagnosed samples whose full genetic sequencing analysis has been completed,
according to the official.
For scientific research, those samples have to undergo strict screening by
the US Government before they are allowed in, he said.
"It is therefore against fact for the WHO official to claim that it had
completed the 'logistical arrangements' for the shipment of Chinese samples, and
that the Ministry of Agriculture had failed to share the viruses that are needed
for the global fight against bird flu," he said.
The official added that the ministry has insisted on dispensing with the
"logistical arrangements" of the WHO.
In response to the ministry's comments, Hall yesterday said determining who
was to blame for the delayed shipment was of no help.
"What is important is to have the samples shared as soon as possible," she
said.
(China Daily 09/08/2006 page1)
