Securing safe medical supply chains

Recommendation 2243 (2022)

Author(s):

Parliamentary Assembly

Origin

Text adopted by the Standing Committee, acting on behalf of the Assembly, on 25 November 2022 (see Doc. 15653, report of the Committee on Social Affairs, Health and Sustainable Development, rapporteur: Ms Jennifer De Temmerman).

1. The Parliamentary Assembly refers to its Resolution 2474 (2022) “Securing safe medical supply chains” and regrets the increased shortages of medical products that have the potential to jeopardise the functioning of public health systems and affect the exercise of the right to protection of health, which is intrinsically connected with the right to life.

2. It welcomes the establishment on 1 January 2022 of the Steering Committee for Human Rights in the fields of Biomedicine and Health (CDBIO) and hails the added value that the Council of Europe’s work brings to the health sector through its human rights-based approach, which has been particularly useful during the Covid-19 pandemic. It welcomes the complementarity of the work accomplished and the expertise mobilised by the Council of Europe, the World Health Organization and the European Union.

3. To respond to the climate crisis and make medical supply chains safer, the Assembly calls for the development of health systems based on human rights that are environment friendly, resilient and have a high level of integrity.

4. To meet patients’ legitimate concerns, the Assembly encourages the Committee of Ministers to ask the CDBIO to maintain an ever-closer working relationship with the World Health Organization, to develop more synergies and to work on the principle of equity between patients in the same health system and on equitable access to medical products for all countries in order to respond to future health crises.

5. Finally, the Assembly calls on the Committee of Ministers to encourage those member States which have not yet done so to ratify the Council of Europe Convention on the Counterfeiting of Medical Products and Similar Crimes involving Threats to Public Health (CETS No. 211, the Medicrime Convention).