JAKARTA (AFP) - Indonesia will urge World Health Organisation members to scrap the existing international policy on bird flu samples when the body meets later this month, a senior health official said here Tuesday.

Indonesia is to use the WHO's annual conference in Geneva to push a controversial new mechanism on sample-sharing, the official said.

The sharing of bird flu samples is considered crucial in the fight against the deadly H5N1 strain of the virus.

Triono Soendoro, the health ministry's head of research, said Indonesia, the nation worst hit by the virus with 75 deaths, has wrongly been painted as the "bad boy" in a long-running dispute with the organisation.

"There is no fight between Indonesia and the WHO ... that is why we are going to Geneva next week with 193 countries in the spirit of how we can improve the system," Soendoro told reporters here.

"Why has Indonesia been blamed for being the bad boy?"

Indonesia sparked concern among scientists after it stopped sharing samples with WHO laboratories in December over fears that drug companies would use them to develop costly vaccines beyond poorer countries' budgets.

Indonesia agreed in March to an immediate resumption, after reaching an apparent deal with the WHO to develop a new mechanism on sample-sharing.

But more than four weeks later, samples have not been sent, partly because Indonesia insists a verbal commitment is not enough and must be in writing.

Under the new mechanism, drug firms would have to negotiate directly, including on financial arrangements, with the country producing the sample.

Sample-sharing is said to allow experts to track the evolution of the disease and determine which strains have become drug resistant.

Bird flu has killed more than 170 people worldwide with most of the deaths in Southeast Asia.

Soendoro said Indonesia has not resumed sharing samples "to shed light on a situation that is unacceptable."

Insisting the dispute was just "a misunderstanding", he said: "Once we discuss and explain what the situation is, more and more people will understand Indonesia's (reasoning)."

A senior WHO official told reporters that negotiations between Indonesia and the WHO on details of the agreement since March have failed to resolve the dispute.

"The WHO has tried its best to persuade Indonesia, but Indonesia is still very firm on its stance. The only mechanism (left) is putting up this matter to the World Assembly," said Nyoman Kumara Rai, a WHO expert on the virus.

The 60th World Health Assembly will be held from May 14 to 23 with coordinated efforts to control aviation influenza expected to be high on its agenda.

Scientists fear the H5N1 strain, first reported in humans in Hong Kong in 1997, could mutate into a more infectious form and spark a flu pandemic with the potential to kill millions worldwide.