Ms.Chan said that she would ensure that poorer countries are looked after...

From the recent conference held in the Swiss city Geneva for the World Health Organization it appears that poorer countries will be safeguarded to make sure they get access to medicines and vaccines to combat the H5N1 bird flu virus at reasonable prices that do not put a big strain on their finances.

The boss of the World Health Organization Ms. Margaret Chan said that she would actively ensure that these poorer countries are looked after. There has been a lot of controversy recently in that these poorer countries are asked to provide bird flu samples for the World Health Organization who then give them to drug companies that make bird flu vaccines which then have to be sold back to these poor countries.

Ms. Chan said that at the same time it was important that poor countries do not withhold bird flu samples because if they did that all the worlds people would suffer in the event of a bird flu pandemic. She stressed that an equitable solution would be found and poor countries would be given easy access to cheap bird flu medicines and vaccines.

Ms. Chan also said that she could not help the world’s poor countries if they tied her hands and prevented her from doing her job. She said all the world’s nations must cooperate together if they were to beat this global threat. Indonesia who had held back in sending H5N1 flu samples to the World Health Organization laboratories for five months are now sending the samples and are fully cooperating following these assurances.

It is extremely important that samples of the H5N1 virus are shared so that scientists can see in what way the virus is evolving or mutating and whether it is likely to become a version that will be contagious between humans.