Proprietary virus information information-sharing practices has caused bad blood between The World Health Organization (WHO) and scientists seeking more open access to data, according to an October Associated Press report.

The standoff could affect the ability to monitor disease and develop vaccines worldwide, according to the AP report published in the International Herald Tribune. Scientists are becoming increasingly disillusioned with the WHO virus-sharing system, which for 55 years has required countries to give up intellectual property rights to the genetic virus data they contribute, while the WHO then shares the information with just 15 laboratories, the article stated.

The limited access to information can significantly slow vaccine development and allows a handful of drug manufacturers to create medicines that impoverished countries often can’t afford, the article stated. That dynamic has been cited as the reason countries such as Russia and China have withheld contributions to the WHO database.

But the availability of a free research database—the Global Initiative on Sharing Avian Influenza Data, or GISAID—that went online in March allows for a level of collaboration research sharing not available before. The nonprofit consortium’s database is even used by the WHO “almost exclusively,” including its identification of influenza strains for the annual flu shot, according to the AP.

While the implementation of the site seems to promise a new era of information sharing, the report cites critics who say the WHO is sabotaging the effort by withholding $450 million dollars granted by the U.S. Centers of Disease Control (CDC) meant for the GISAID. The WHO’s David Heymann told AP the money had been earmarked for a database, but not specifically for GISAID.

For more on the GISAID project visit the website.