PETER CAVE: Indonesia’s Health Minister has suggested that the United States may be involved in a conspiracy to use the bird flu virus to develop biological weapons.
The extraordinary allegation is included in a new book, endorsed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, which describes Indonesia’s fight to assert its ownership of its virulent strains of avian influenza.
Concerns over that issue prompted Indonesia last year to stop sharing virus samples with the World Health Organization as Jakarta correspondent Geoff Thompson reports.
GEOFF THOMPSON: No country in the world has been hit by bird flu like Indonesia. Already this year 11 people have died and ten of those were from Jakarta or surrounding areas.
Indonesia’s uniquely virulent strain of H5N1 gave the country "bargaining power" according to Indonesia’s Health Minister Dr Siti Fadilah Supari, in her new book called "It’s Time for the World to Change" and strangely subtitled "The Divine Hand Behind Avian Influenza".
It’s this bargaining power which led Dr Supari in late 2006 to stop sharing Indonesia’s strains of bird flu with World Health Organization laboratories because of fears that any vaccines developed would then be sold for profit to developing countries with no benefit to Indonesia.
In essence, Indonesia sought to retain the "virus rights" and any profits to be made from its bird flu problem.
Back then on AM, Dr Supari effectively accused Australia of stealing Indonesia’s strain of H5N1 to make bird flu vaccines.
Now in her book Dr Supari has revealed, the full scope of the conspiracy she believes she is up against. "Developed countries become richer", she writes, "because they have the capability to develop the vaccine and control the world".
Original article posted here.
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