Indonesians work in a backyard chicken slaughterhouse in a crowded neighborhood today in Jakarta, Indonesia. The World Health Organization might guarantee that poor nations get access to stockpiles of bird flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic, the top WHO flu official said, hoping to end a row triggered by Indonesia's decision to stop sharing virus samples. AP Photo

JAKARTA, Indonesia - The World Health Organization might guarantee that poor nations get access to bird flu vaccines in the event of a pandemic, the top WHO flu official said Monday, hoping to end a dispute triggered by Indonesia's decision to stop sharing virus samples.

Indonesia - the nation hardest hit by bird flu, with 66 human deaths - is refusing to send samples of the H5N1 bird flu virus to WHO until it stops sharing them with commercial vaccine makers.

The government says the current system is unfair because it cannot afford vaccines produced using its strains.

“The system places developing countries at potential disadvantages in terms of price, access and supply of vaccine,” Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari said at a meeting of global health officials in Jakarta aimed at resolving the standoff. “The rules of the system must be changed.”

Indonesia's decision has received support from some other developing nations, but has alarmed international scientists desperate to check whether the virus is mutating into a more dangerous form.

“All nations have a responsibility to share data and virus samples,” U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Mike Leavitt said in an e-mailed statement that also offered $10 million to WHO to help make sure poor countries have access to vaccines.

“Responding to a pandemic will demand the cooperation of the world community. No nation can go it alone,” he said.

Dr. David Heymann, WHO's top flu official, said one short-term solution might be “stockpiles ... in which industry would set aside a percentage of pandemic vaccine for developing country needs, with a guarantee of purchase from WHO.”

Later the body might help Indonesia and other developing countries develop vaccine production facilities themselves, he said.

Heymann said Indonesia's demand that the world body withhold strains from commercial vaccine makers would only hamper efforts against the virus.

Such a move would end 50 years of cooperation between the world body and vaccine makers and could eventually put Indonesia's own people at great risk, Heymann said.

“If we don't know what's going on it's dangerous, and here is where the virus is most affecting humans,” he told reporters late Monday, adding that vaccine makers are already looking elsewhere for virus samples.

Supari did not respond to the possible solution proposed by Heymann, but insisted that Indonesia would not send the samples outside the country if it meant that vaccine makers could access them.

“A collaborating center and vaccine factory could be developed here so there will be no need for the virus to be sent outside the country,” she told reporters. “Why not? We have the most virus and patients.”

The three-day meeting, attended by health officials from 18 countries, is to end Wednesday.

Indonesia's decision to stop cooperating with WHO has highlighted inequalities in global access to vaccines and drugs.

“Wealthy countries are always in a better position to be able to produce vaccines, to buy them and to distribute them,” said Dr. James Campbell, a leading bird flu vaccine researcher at the University of Maryland.

Bird flu has killed at least 169 people since it began ravaging Asian poultry stocks in 2003, according to WHO. It remains hard for people to catch, and most human cases have been linked to contact with sick birds. But experts fear it could mutate into a form that spreads easily among people, potentially sparking a pandemic that could kill millions.

Currently, only up to about 500 million doses of flu vaccine can be produced annually - far short of what would be needed in a pandemic.

To ensure it has access to a bird flu vaccine, Indonesia has reached a tentative agreement with U.S. drug manufacturer Baxter Healthcare Corp. Under the deal, Indonesia would provide the virus in exchange for Baxter's expertise in vaccine production.