On 20 July, the World Trade Organization (WTO) published a list of trade barriers and their remedies to increase the production and distribution of vaccines and treatments against Covid-19.
The list includes imports, exports, transit procedures, production of Covid-19 vaccines and their components, marketing authorisations, medical devices and normative aspects in general.
The obstacles and recommendations were raised at a series of events organised by the WTO in June.
One of the key elements of the document is the urgent need for effective circulation of essential products. A simple delay of a component in the supply chain can significantly slow down supply, according to the WTO.
The organisation published the list ahead of a high-level dialogue with the World Health Organization (WHO) on 21 July, with the aim of improving equitable access to vaccines worldwide.
“Because vaccine ingredients and production equipment are complex and frequently too granular to be captured by the internationally standardised product classifications that customs agencies use, these lists should help make it easier to monitor and compare trade flows, and to better target trade facilitating measures”, said WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala at the opening of the event.
See the document: https://bit.ly/3wX7bwt (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)