'No secrets' on new diseases, ministers promise

"One of the lessons from SARS is that in trying to hide these things, eventually they break out," Dr. David Butler-Jones, Canada's chief public health officer, said Tuesday in Ottawa after the meeting.

"And it's very, very embarrassing. So it's in everyone's interests to be transparent."

China waited three months before finally telling the world about the 2003 SARS outbreak.

The ministers also promised to work on guidelines for the poultry industry to prevent the spread of bird flu, particularly in developing countries.

Other commitments:

Boosting technical support for tracking new diseases
Improving the world's ability to make new vaccines

But there were no announcements on contentious issues such as further culls of poultry flocks in Asia or deciding how rich countries could share medicine with poor ones.

Mexico and others had urged the conference to recommend having developed countries share up to 10 per cent of their supply of anti-viral drugs.

"That's not the only way to come to a resolution on this need, which is very great and grave," Ujjal Dosanjh, Canada's health minister, told a news conference at the conference's conclusion on Tuesday.

Some informal discussion indicated the World Health Organization might be the best keeper of such a stockpile, he said.

About eight to 10 countries that have the assets should develop a protocol on when, where and how to share those drugs, he said.

"Because once you have a virus beginning, you have to act within hours, not days."

Discussions on the protocol will start quite soon, Dosanjh said.

Two more meetings are scheduled in the coming weeks: One in Geneva and one in Rome.

Tamiflu sales halted

The meeting came amid renewed debate about the role the government would play if drug makers would be required to boost production of antiviral medication.

The Globe and Mail reported Monday that Roche Canada, the Canadian drug maker producing Tamiflu, has temporarily halted sales until December, the traditional start of flu season, due to a sharp increase in demand.

Oseltamivir, sold as Tamiflu, is an antiviral medication that is widely considered to be the best defence against a bird flu pandemic.

At the news conference, Dosanjh said if sales had been suspended to private individuals, "that may be motivated on their part to see Tamiflu going into government's hands so it can be appropriately delivered based on public health advice.

"If that's the rationale, then I think you couldn't argue with that," he said.

Some leaders had mused about forcing a drug company to give up its drug formula if a new flu emerged.

According to a Public Health Agency of Canada official who spoke to The Globe, the federal, provincial and territorial governments in Canada have stockpiled 35 million Tamiflu pills in total.

However, there are concerns that Canada's first line of attack may not be effective, if bird flu were to develop into a human pandemic.

A recent report shows a Vietnamese girl who came down with the H5N1 avian flu strain appears to have shown resistance to Tamiflu.

Indeed, health officials have warned Tamiflu can't be considered the only answer to the pandemic threat, as the virus could develop resistance to the drug once large numbers of people begin to take it.

With a report from CTV's Avis Favaro