The World Health Assembly opens today, bringing together all of the WHO member countries for their annual meeting. The agenda includes a session on WHO’s work concerning substandard medical products, including “information and awareness creation,” “norms and standards” and “technical support to countries.” It will also debate the controversial relationship between WHO and the International Medical Products Anti-Counterfeiting Taskforce (IMPACT). As stated in the meeting’s documentation, “several member States [have] expressed their concerns about the controversial nature of the work IMPACT and confusion between public health goals and commercial interests.”
The document guiding the debate on substandard medicines is the Report of the Working Group of Member States on Substandard/Spurious/Falsely-Labeled/Falsified/Counterfeit Medical Products. For more information on the meeting, see the WHO webpage for the 64th World Health Assembly.
