Health negotiators narrowly miss virus sharing deal

By Jonathan Lynn

GENEVA (Reuters) - Health negotiators from rich and poor countries failed on Saturday to clinch a full deal on virus sharing to produce vaccines, but expressed satisfaction that they had closed gaps on some tough political issues.

The H1N1 influenza outbreak which has spread around the world from Mexico and the United States, leading the World Health Organisation to declare a flu pandemic is imminent, has given added urgency to the work of the intergovernmental meeting, set up two years ago by the WHO.

The meeting agreed late on Saturday after a good-humored two-day session to forward a framework agreement on sharing influenza viruses and on access to vaccine benefits -- including its gaps to next week's World Health Assembly (WHA) at the WHO.

The assembly can then decide how to work further on the agreement, either during its meeting -- truncated because of the swine flu outbreak -- or later.

Jane Halton, the top official in Australia's Health and Aging Department, who chaired the meeting, told delegates they had achieved a significant amount of work.

"Yes, we acknowledge here that there are matters we have not resolved, and yes, they are difficult, but I do think a good body of material has been produced," she said.

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The meeting was set up in 2007 amid a scare about H5N1 influenza, or bird flu, which is often fatal to humans, as part of the WHO's efforts to prepare for a pandemic.