The WTO’s four Deputy Directors-General, Yonov Frederick Agah, Karl Brauner, Alan Wolff, and Yi Xiaozhun have urged members on 1st February 2021 to step up cooperation to ensure worldwide access to vaccines to fight the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The pandemic is a global problem. This challenge calls for heightened international cooperation, including ensuring the global availability of vaccines. Recalling the joint statement by the Directors-General of the WHO and WTO on 20th April 2020, we call upon Members to work together towards making vaccines available to all. Moreover, the war against the pandemic can only be won when universal coverage in vaccination is achieved”.
The WTO maintains a dedicated page on its website to provide up-to-the-minute trade-related information with regards to COVID-19, including relevant notifications from WTO members, the impact the virus has had on exports and imports, and how WTO activities have been affected by the pandemic.
In the joint statement issued in April last year, the former WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pledged their support for efforts to ensure the normal cross-border flow of vital medical supplies and other goods and services.
COVID-19 has rapidly progressed to become a global pandemic, causing an unprecedented, far-reaching impact on the health, social and economic well-being of communities around the world.
The World Health Organization (WHO) and World Trade Organization (WTO) noted in the statement issued last year that they are committed to responding effectively to the situation, working together with other international organizations and their respective memberships.
“Protecting lives is our top priority, and these efforts can be impeded by unnecessary disruptions to global trade and supply chains”, they declared.
According to the joint statement, governments’ trade policy decisions significantly influence both getting medical equipment and supplies to where they are urgently needed and catalysing the supply of critical inputs for the production of medicines and health technologies to fight the pandemic.
The two Director-Generals pointed out that keeping trade in health technologies as open and predictable as possible is therefore of vital interest. This will help countries to respond to this crisis, recover from it, and to build health systems that will foster greater resilience in the future.
“WHO and WTO are working together to support efforts to ensure the normal cross-border flow of vital medical supplies and other goods and services, promoting them where possible, and to resolve unnecessary disruptions to global supply chains, in furtherance of the International Health Regulations (2005) and WTO rules”.
The purpose of the International Health Regulations is to prevent, protect against, control and provide a public health response to the international spread of disease in ways that are commensurate with public health risks, to minimize interference with international traffic and trade.
WTO rules provide governments with the flexibilities they may need to address essential medical supply shortages and/or public health challenges.
“Governments need to avoid measures that can disrupt supply chains and negatively impact the poorest and most vulnerable, notably in developing and least developed countries that are typically reliant on imports of medicines and medical equipment.
“We call on our Members to continue to share information about their measures with WHO and WTO, in line with the established transparency mechanisms, which are now especially valuable in supporting a coordinated response.
“To ensure that health technologies, including diagnostics, medicines, vaccines, and other medical supplies vital to treating patients infected by COVID-19, reach those in need quickly, we emphasize the importance of streamlining conformity checks based on regulatory cooperation and international standards”, the statement said.
