WHO and WTO Call for Open Trade on Medical Supplies
to Combat COVID-19
WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo
and World Health Organization Director-General Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus issued
a joint statement on 20 April underlining their support for efforts to ensure
the normal cross-border flow of vital medical supplies and other goods and
services. “Protecting lives is our top priority, and these efforts can be
impeded by unnecessary disruptions to global trade and supply chains,” they
declared. The joint statement is below.
COVID-19 has rapidly progressed to become a global pandemic,
causing 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) are committed to responding effectively to
the situation, working together with other international organizations and
our respective memberships. Global, coordinated action is required to deal with
the extraordinary challenges the pandemic poses to people’s health as well as
their livelihoods.
Protecting lives is our top priority, and these efforts can be
impeded by unnecessary disruptions to global trade and supply chains.
Governments’ trade policy decisions significantly influence both getting
medical equipment and supplies to where they are urgently needed and catalyzing
the supply of critical inputs for the production of medicines and health
technologies to fight the pandemic. 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, to recover from it and to build the 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, with a view to minimizing 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. 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. 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.
While we are heartened by the remarkable research efforts and the
rapid mobilization of public and private resources to develop COVID-19 health
technologies, we call upon governments to implement policy measures that
can further facilitate their research and development, and to promote their
rapid dissemination within countries and across borders so as to ensure
equitable access to those technologies. Such initiatives include targeted
investment, ensuring open access to clinical test results, the sharing of
relevant intellectual property rights, increasing manufacturing capacity, open
and transparent procurement regimes, the elimination of tariffs on relevant
health technologies, and trade facilitation measures to reduce costs and
delays.
Global action, solidarity and international cooperation are more
necessary than ever to address this health situation. WHO and the WTO are
working together to play their part.