# 685
Last September, the CDC admitted that China had not delivered 20 H5N1 virus samples as promised, due to disputes over the `mailing protocol', but that the issues had been `resolved'.
This except is from a CIDRAP news report, dated Nov 10,2006
Chinese promise H5N1 samples, deny claim of new strain
Jia rebuffed criticisms that China hasn't shared its avian flu samples with the international community. He said the country sent five samples to the WHO in June 2005 and sent the CDC another 20 samples this year.
CDC officials reported in September that 20 samples expected from China had been delayed because of a disagreement over the mailing protocol but that the problem had been resolved. CDC officials could not be reached today to clarify whether the samples were actually received.
We now know, due to the terrific reporting by Helen Branswell this week, that no human samples have been sent since May of 2006 and that they dated from late 2005 or early 2006.
Yesterday, the Chinese government promised to send these badly needed samples once again, after public criticism by the WHO and the International press.
China to send bird flu samples to WHO
BEIJING - China is preparing to send updated virus samples from human bird flu cases to the World Health Organization, state media reported Friday, days after the WHO said it hadn't received any for a year.
The Health Ministry "will send two recent samples of the virus and one from a Beijing patient who was infected in 2003," the China Daily newspaper said, citing a ministry official surnamed Ma.
Five new human cases have been reported in China since Beijing last sent samples to the WHO in April and May of 2006. The government also disclosed last year that new tests on the body of a 24-year-old soldier who died in 2003 confirmed that he succumbed to the disease.
While sharing virus samples is not mandated by the WHO, they are needed to produce diagnostic tools and vaccines. The lack of cooperation, experts say, could slow efforts to track diseases and develop vaccines and other strategies to deal with them.
The Health Ministry said it was trying to ensure that the samples are "dispatched safely and smoothly," according to the newspaper.
"The process of handing over the samples is still under way," it cited the ministry as saying.
Ensuring that the samples are `dispatched safely and smoothly' sounds suspiciously like the `mailing protocol' issues of eight months ago. The ones that were reportedly `resolved' last year.
Apparently these issues are still open, at least according to this excerpt from a report by AFP news.
China to give WHO virus samples
(Excerpt)
"Upholding the principle of openness, transparency and cooperation, the government has always worked closely with the international community as part of the global effort to prevent a bird flu epidemic," the China Daily quoted the health ministry as saying.
However, it also quoted a spokesman for the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Wang Lin, as saying any handover of samples could take several months due to the care required in transporting them.
Admittedly, there is not much the WHO, the CDC, or the International community can do when a sovereign nation is (I'll be kind here) `slow' to send virus samples. They can ask, they can cajole, and even in desperation, publicly embarrass a country; but they have very little in the way of real leverage.
The Chinese have bought some time by saying, once again, that they are `preparing to send the samples'. Meanwhile, the virus continues to spread and mutate in China, and the rest of the world remains essentially blind to many of those changes.
One can only hope that we have that time to spare.
