Indonesia says it will start sharing all information about its bird flu cases with a new global database, a move experts say will help monitor the disease following the country&

#39;s yearlong standoff with the World Health Organization.

China, Russia and other nations that have long withheld influenza virus samples and DNA sequencing data from the international community are also taking part, saying it offers full transparency and, for the first time, basic protection of intellectual property rights.

The free online site was launched yesterday, 18 months after strategic adviser Peter Bogner and 77 influential scientists and health experts wrote a letter to Nature magazine calling for information about bird flu to be shared more quickly and openly, and creating the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data.

In January last year, Indonesia's health minister Siti Fadilah Supari decided to buck WHO's 50-year-old virus sharing system, saying it was unfair to developing countries. She said she was worried pharmaceutical firms with access to the database would use Indonesia's virus strains to develop costly vaccines that would ultimately be inaccessible to her own people.

Her decision triggered a firestorm. Health experts said by making it impossible to see if Indonesia's virus strain was mutating, she could be endangering the planet.

ASSOCIATED PRESS