A Pair of 30 customs officials from the Americas and the Caribbean receivedOn February 14 and 15, a training session on counterfeit and/or substandard medical products was held as part of an initiative that seeks to contribute to better protection of society.
This was reported by the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the World Health Organization (WHO), which highlighted the realization of the Third online workshop on “Combating illicit trafficking of counterfeit and/or substandard products”, for participants from nine countries in the region: Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Peru and Uruguay.
“Customs administrations must protect borders against illicit trafficking and, in particular, against non-compliant, falsified and/or substandard medical products,” he said. Ricardo Treviño, Deputy Secretary General of the WCO. He also highlighted a key issue: “Protecting society remains a key priority in the WCO Strategic Plan 2022-2025, approved at WCO Council Sessions 139/140.”
The trade in illicit products poses a major challenge to the international law enforcement community and an enormous risk to global public health. In this regard, the WHO representative He referred to substandard and/or falsified medicines. He drew attention to cases of lethal pediatric products recently reported, while calling on customs administrations to increase their surveillance at the borders.
For this reason, a representative of the Executive Secretariat of the Medicrime Convention The Council of Europe also took an active part in the discussions. The organisers of the event clarified that the Medicrime Convention is a binding legal instrument in the field of criminal law, which criminalises not only the falsification but also the manufacture and distribution of medical products marketed without authorisation or in violation of safety standards.
Tools and best practices
Thus, the workshop participants acquired assistance in tools and instruments of the OMA related to intellectual property rights such as the CENcomm platform, e-commerce risk indicators and the online CLiKC platform, specifically a module dedicated to combating illicit medicines and counterfeit or substandard medical supplies related to COVID-19 and other pandemics.
Additionally, rights holders representing four pharmaceutical companies presented (on the second day) the techniques and best practices for detecting counterfeit or substandard pharmaceutical products from the perspective of the private sector.
“I encourage you to share the knowledge acquired during the workshop with other colleagues to help customs administrations in the region improve their response capabilities in this field,” he said. Martha Garamendi, Director General of Customs of Peru in charge of the Vice Presidency of the WCO for the Americas and the Caribbean Region.
In this way, the WCO-WHO initiative provided support to customs in the region to face current challenges, but also future challenges.
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