The drugs conglomerate GlaxoSmithKline attacked the Indonesian Government yesterday for refusing to supply bird flu samples that would allow it to develop a human vaccine for the virus.

Last week Indonesian officials said that they would stop sharing strains of the H5N1 virus with foreign scientists unless the World Health Organisation provided guarantees that they would not be used commercially.

Jakarta claims the system, in which samples are given to the WHO, which in turn supplies them to vaccine manufacturers, allows wealthy Western drug companies to use them to produce vaccines that developing countries cannot afford.

However, Britain’s GlaxoSmithKline, the world’s second-biggest pharmaceutical company and a leading vaccine manufacturer, rejected the claims and admonished Indonesia for creating a threat to public health.

“We are concerned that recent developments appear to undermine the spirit of the long-established WHO Global Influenza Surveillance Network,” the company said. “For this system to remain effective and to ensure that the international community is in a position to respond to the threat posed by a pandemic, all countries must freely share information on viruses circulating in their countries.”

GSK, whose vaccine business had global sales of £1.7 billion last year, insisted that its vaccines would be available to any country that needed them in the event of a pandemic.

Indonesia’s decision has plunged the global search for a vaccine into crisis. The country has recorded 64 deaths from avian flu — more than any other — and Indonesia was considered one of the most likely places where a human pandemic strain could emerge.

Luc Hessel, chairman of the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers and Wholesalers, said he was “strongly opposed” to Indonesia’s decision, which he cautioned would lead to “unacceptable delays” in the development of a vaccine. “It is critical for there to be a cooperative approach,” he told The Times.

A WHO spokesman said that it was seeking further details about Jakarta’s plans to withdraw from the system, which allows all parties to share and analyse flu viruses for research purposes. It claimed that the arrangement had “saved millions of lives” since its inception 50 years ago. A decision to pull out would be the first in the system’s history.

Nevertheless, the WHO acknowledged that Indonesia’s concerns were understandable. “Indonesia is rightly concerned about its access to a vaccine,” the spokesman said. “At most, manufacturers will be able to produce only 500 million doses — far short of what will be needed in the event of a pandemic. The vaccines will be in limited supply and will probably be available only to countries which have manufacturing capacity.”

Ninety-five per cent of influenza capacity is currently in North America, Europe, Japan and Australia.

GSK has already developed a vaccine for one strain of the H5N1 flu virus but, because the virus constantly mutates, it is unclear if this will be effective against any final strain in the event of a human pandemic.

Indonesia has held talks with Baxter International, the US vaccine group, about a possible deal to help to develop a vaccine outside the WHO system.

The negotiations have fuelled speculation that rival vaccine manufacturers may be forced to reach similar, unilateral agreements with Indonesia to help to develop H5N1 vaccines. There is concern that countries such as Vietnam, thought to have considered a similar approach in the past, may follow Indonesia’s lead.

The big players

The main vaccine makers:

- Baxter Vaccines — a division of the American company Baxter International

- Sanofi Pasteur — the vaccine arm of the French drugs group Sanofi Aventis

- GlaxoSmithKline — GlaxoSmithKline Biologicals is the vaccine business of the British drugs group GSK and is the world’s largest vaccine manufacturer

- Chiron — vaccine business of the Swiss pharmaceuticals group Novartis

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