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Bird flu research has to carried out in a highly controlled environment
Two studies showing how scientists mutated the H5N1 bird flu virus into a form that could cause a deadly human pandemic will be published only after experts fully assess the risks, the World Health Organisation has said.
Experts have delayed a decision on whether research into the bird flu virus should be released amid concerns that the information could be used by bio-terrorists.
Speaking after a high-level meeting of flu experts and US security officials in Geneva, a WHO official said a deal had been reached in principle to keep details of the controversial work secret until deeper risk analysis could be carried out.
WHO assistant director-general for health security and environment Keiji Fukuda said: "There is a preference from a public health perspective for full disclosure of the information in these two studies.
"However, there are significant public concerns surrounding this research that should first be addressed."
The WHO called the meeting to break a deadlock between scientists who have studied the mutations needed to make H5N1 bird flu transmit between mammals, and the US National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB), which wanted the work censored before it was published in scientific journals.
Biosecurity experts fear mutated forms of the virus that research teams in The Netherlands and the US independently created could escape or fall into the wrong hands and be used to cause a pandemic worse than the 1918-19 outbreak of Spanish flu that killed up to 40m people.
WHO spokesman Gregory Hartl said that because of these fears, "there must be a much fuller discussion of risk and benefits of research in this area and risks of virus itself".
But a scientist close to the NSABB who spoke to Reuters immediately after the decision said the board was deeply "frustrated" by the situation.
The only NSABB member attending the meeting was infectious disease expert Paul Keim of Northern Arizona University and he "got the hell beat out of him," the source said.
"It was a closed meeting dominated by flu people who have a vested interest in continuing this kind of work," he added.
The WHO said experts at the meeting included lead researchers of the two studies, scientific journals interested in publishing the research, funders of the research, countries who provided the viruses, bioethicists and directors from several WHO-linked laboratories specialising in influenza.
- Keywords:
- bird flu,
- bioterrorism,
- h5n1
