Planning
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Background
The COVID-19 pandemic continues to pose a tremendous risk to the health and safety of people throughout the world and seriously jeopardizes future economic prospects on an international scale. Hundreds of thousands of people all over the world have died from the disease, which was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) on 11 March 2020. The WCO, while facilitating legitimate trade and providing best practice with regard to the pandemic, has worked with its Members to curb the illicit trade of medicines and medical supplies linked to the COVID-19 pandemic through the first Operation STOP. With 99 Customs administrations, RILO’s, International Organizations and private sector participants and 1,233 cases of seizure or detention reported by Members, Operation STOP was a great success, showing the outstanding agility and relevance of Customs in a global pandemic situation. The WCO Member Customs administrations are the only authorities to oversee international cross-border movements of goods, and thus the first line of defence against illicit trade of medicine and medical supplies during a pandemic situation.
The 137th Session of the Customs Co-operation Council, through a Council Resolution (December 2020) has invited the WCO Members and Secretariat to take action for protecting people’s health and safety during the global distribution of the COVID-19 vaccines.
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Structure/Platform for webinars
The webinars will be delivered from 15 to 16 March 2021. It is expected that two (2) webinars will be organized and delivered. The webinars will made be available in English to all WCO Members, RILOs and CCP units.
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Objectives of the webinars
This 2nd series of webinars will provide customs with knowledge of the essential characteristics and specifications of Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. This will enable Customs to be better equipped to identify and limit the traffic of counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines. The second series of webinars will be followed by additional WCO webinars with the active participation of the pharmaceutical industries that have produced COVID-19 vaccines.
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Contact
WCOGlobalWebinar@wcoomd.org