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Coronavirus pandemic
China

Who owns a virus? Covid-19 reignites debate on ‘viral sovereignty’

  • The international community has failed to agree on what obligations countries have to share genetic sequence data, the authors of a ‘Science’ paper say
  • Without such rules, cross-border cooperation on global health threats could be at stake, researchers say

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The international community has not agreed on what obligations countries have to share viruses and genetic sequence data. Photo: Xinhua
Linda LewandSimone McCarthy

When a deadly disease breaks out and threatens the world, countries are obliged to share laboratory samples and other information to help fight it, right?

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Wrong. In 2007, Indonesia refused to give the World Health Organisation samples of an H5N1 influenza strain from an outbreak in the country until it was guaranteed fair access to any vaccines created from the material. Welcome to the world of “viral sovereignty”.

The ownership of pathogens and related data that emerge in one country is part of a long-standing debate that touches a colonial exploitative nerve: wealthy countries plundering the natural resources – including biodiversity – of poorer nations and profiting from it.

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With the coronavirus death toll nearing 300,000, the Covid-19 pandemic has revived the issue of whether countries can claim ownership of pathogens that have emerged within their borders, according to the authors of a paper published in the Policy Forum in Science magazine on Friday.

“The problem here is that the international community has failed to reach a consensus on what obligations, if any, countries have to share viruses and share genetic sequence data. That is an incredibly important public health good on the international stage,” Dr Mark Eccleston-Turner, who co-authored the paper with Dr Alexandra Phelan, told the South China Morning Post.

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