# 771
Once again, Indonesia is promising to release virus samples to the WHO (World Health Organization).
This report from Radio Australia.
Indonesia to share flu samples
Last Updated 15/05/2007, 20:02:34
Indonesia has resumed sharing samples of the deadly H5N1 bird flu virus with the World Health Organisation after a five-month gap.
WHO spokesman, Gregory Hartl, has told Radio Australia's Rob Sharp that Indonesia's samples are of vital importance.
"If we know how the virus is evolving, where types of virus are more active, that gives us better idea where we should be concentrating our efforts," he said.
"It gives vaccine manufacturers a better chance of developing the vaccine which will be able to stop the pandemic virus."
Indonesia's health minister, Siti Fadillah Supari, told the WHO's annual assembly in Geneva on Tuesday that Indonesia has resumed sending its H5N1 specimens to the WHO collaborating centre in Tokyo.
The country stopped sharing virus with the WHO last December because it said it feared that it would not benefit from any vaccines made from it.
Indonesia has the world's highest human death toll from bird flu.
