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 on 15 February 2022. It is expected that one (1) webinar will be organized and delivered. The webinar will be made available in English to all WCO Members, RILO’s and CCP units. Registrations will be closed 2 days prior the webinar and meeting link will be send out accordingly.
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Objectives of the webinars
This 9th series of webinars will provide customs with knowledge of the essential characteristics and specifications of the Novavax COVID-19 vaccines. This will enable Customs to be better equipped to identify the traffic of genuine and counterfeit COVID-19 vaccines.
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Contact
WCOGlobalWebinar@wcoomd.org