Indonesia to give bird flu information online

Jakarta: Indonesia's health minister says she will give all genetic information about her country's bird flu virus to a new global database.

Experts say that will go a long way toward monitoring the disease that is threatening to spark a pandemic.

Indonesia has been withholding bird flu virus samples and DNA sequencing data from the World Health Organization for more than a year. It says the global body's 50-year-old virus sharing system is unfair to developing countries.

That has made it impossible for scientists to see if the virus was mutating to a more dangerous form.

Health Minister Siti Fadilah Supari says she decided to cooperate with the online databank that launched Thursday because it is fully transparent and protects intellectual property rights.