WTO, WHO call for smooth flow of medical supplies

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) – The World Trade Organization (WTO) and World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday jointly called for efforts to ensure the normal cross-border flow of vital medical supplies and other goods and services.

In their statement, WTO Director-General Roberto Azevedo and his WHO counterpart Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus also pledged to work together to resolve disruptions to global supply chains.

“Protecting lives is our top priority, and these efforts can be impeded by unnecessary disruptions to global trade and supply chains,” they said.

The two officials said COVID-19 had 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.

They said the WHO and WTO are committed to responding effectively to the situation, working together with other international organizations and their respective members.

Due to the challenges the pandemic poses to people’s health as well as their livelihoods, global coordinated action is needed.

“Governments’ trade policy decisions significantly influence both getting medical equipment and supplies to where they are urgently needed,” said Azevedo and Tedros.

“Keeping trade in health technologies as open and predictable as possible is therefore of vital interest,” they said.

The open movement will help countries respond to this crisis, to recover and to build the health systems that will foster greater resilience in the future.

The aim of the WTO and WHO is in furthering the International Health Regulations (2005) and WTO rules, they said.

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.

It does this in ways that match public health risks with the aim of minimizing interference with international traffic and trade.

The WTO said its rules provide governments with the flexibility they may need to address essential medical supply shortages along with public health challenges.

“But any measure taken to promote public health that restricts trade should be ‘targeted, proportionate, transparent and temporary,’ consistent with recent calls from world leaders,” Tedros and Azevedo said.

They said governments need to avoid disrupting supply chains and negatively impacting the poorest and most vulnerable, notably in developing and least developed countries reliant on imports of medicines and medical equipment.

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