WHO says bird flu database should be made public

Geneva, March 18. (AP): The UN health agency says it would like to make public a confidential database it maintains on bird flu research, but that it is up to countries and scientists to agree on sharing their information.

The password-protected database, details of which were first reported on earlier this month in articles by the journal Science and The Wall Street Journal, was created in 2003 at the request of southeast Asian countries first hit by the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu, said Dick Thompson, spokesman for infectious diseases at the World Health Organisation.

WHO has been urging countries and researchers to allow genetic sequences of the virus stored in the database to be made available publicly, but countries and scientists have so far resisted, Thompson said.

"It's been several months since we've been saying that access to this information should not be restricted," Thompson told The Associated Press. "But these are not our viruses and this isn't our information."

Thompson declined to name, which countries were most opposed or elaborate on why they were concerned about the information becoming freely accessible.

The H5N1 virus remains primarily a bird disease, but it has infected at least 177 people and killed 98 in the last three years.