Back 1st Meeting of the working group on the MEDICRIME 24/7 network

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A Working Group of the MEDICRIME Committee, open to all member States and observers of the Council of Europe, will hold its first meeting to establish a 24/7 Network of national focal points to serve the scope and the objective of the MEDICRIME Convention.

Members of the Working Group aim to discuss responsibilities of a national 24/7 focal point, the selection of authorities to bear the role of national 24/7 focal point, the institutionalisation of the framework at national level and the operationalisation of the future 24/7 Network.

Discussions will be guided by experts who drafted the recent feasibility study on setting-up a 24/7 Network within the framework of the MEDICRIME Convention and members of the 24/7 Cybercrime programme which was established in the framework of the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime.

The MEDICRIME Committee currently gathers 18 Parties that have ratified the Convention, including 4 non-member States of the Council of Europe. The MEDICRIME Convention has also been signed by 18 countries, and 3 more are initiating the accession process.

Strasbourg 14 December 2021
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Covid 19

At a time when the Covid-19 epidemic is posing unprecedented challenges to the health sector, the Council of Europe calls on governments to be extremely vigilant against counterfeit or falsified medicines and medical products. Faced with this threat, states can rely on the MEDICRIME Convention to safeguard public health and target the criminal behaviour of those who, like criminal networks, take advantage of the loopholes in our systems and of the current crisis.

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"In recent years, occurrences of counterfeiting of medical products and similar crimes have increased worldwide. These crimes endanger public health, and affect patients and their confidence in the legal marketplace.

Even more profitable than drug trafficking, this new form of crime has an undeniable advantage for criminals: they go largely unpunished or receive only mild sanctions. Even when states take strict measures to regulate the production and distribution of medical products and devices, these measures often prove insufficient, especially when criminal networks find gaps in national legislations allowing them to make substantial profits at the expense of people’s lives and health. The MEDICRIME Convention was drafted to protect vulnerable patients and their right to safe access to medicines of appropriate quality, and to fight against organised crime. As the first and only international treaty dealing with this problem, the convention aims at prosecuting the counterfeiting of medical products and similar crimes, protecting the rights of victims and promoting national and international co-operation."

Gabriella Battaini-Dragoni
Deputy Secretary General of the Council of Europe