JAKARTA, Indonesia - Indonesia"e;s health minister says she will give all genetic information about her country"e;s bird flu virus to a new global database.

Experts say that will go a long way toward monitoring the disease, which 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"e;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 in Indonesia.

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