WS 17 - Fighting Falsified and Substandard Medicines during the COVID-19 Crisis

The fight against falsified and substandard medicines in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) is a major challenge. With constrained access to essential medicines, weak technical capacity for medicine quality assurance and control, and challenges in appropriate governance both in health care facilities and in national medicines regulatory authorities, many LMICs show the conditions which WHO has identified as favoring the occurrence of substandard and falsified medicines. Additionally, the COVID-19 crisis led to a disruption of the production and supply chains of medicines worldwide, and some countries stopped the export of medicines. Newly developed medicines and vaccines against COVID-19 will be in very high demand. All this creates increased opportunities for the distribution of falsified medicines by criminals.

In this session we will try to assess the situation from the viewpoints of different stakeholders, and discuss possible strategies to counteract the proliferation of falsified medicines, with a focus on Africa.