By The United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC)

Restrictions on movement imposed by govern- ments across the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic have had an impact on the trafficking of substandard and falsified medical products. Interpol and the World Customs Organization (WCO) reported that seizures of substandard and falsified medical products, including person- al protective equipment (PPE), increased for the first time in March 2020. The emergence of trafficking in PPE signals a significant shift in organized criminal group behaviour that is directly attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has brought huge demand for medical products such as PPE over a relatively short period of time. It is foreseeable that, with the evolution of COVID-19 and developments in medicinal treatments and/or the repurposing of existing medicines, criminal behaviour will shift from trafficking in PPE to the development and delivery of a COVID-19 vaccine. Furthermore, cyberattacks on critical infrastructure involved in addressing the pandemic are likely to continue in the form of online scams aimed at health procurement authorities. Challenges in pandemic preparedness, ranging from weak regulatory and legal frameworks to the prevention of the manufacturing and trafficking of substandard and falsified products and cyber security shortcomings, were evident before COVID-19, but the pandemic has exacerbated them and it will be difficult to make significant improvements in the immediate short term. The report concludes that crime targeting COVID-19 medical products will become more focused with significantly greater risks to pub- lic health as the containment phase of the pan- demic passes to the treatment and prevention stages.  

Vienna: UNODC, 2020. 31p.

By The World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe

There are currently a variety of models of prison health accountability across the WHO European Region. The WHO Regional Office for Europe recommends that leadership should come from health ministries if health equity between prisons and the outside community is to be achieved. Most importantly, a whole of-government approach is required to improve the quality of health services in prisons. This policy brief describes the governance and organizational models for prison health adopted by three European countries– Finland, Portugal and England. Each of these has a different arrangement in place, either under the Ministry of Health or under the Ministry of Justice working in partnership with the Ministry of Health. Those that have undergone a change in governance model have done so at different moments and adopted a different approach to implementing the change. Each of the three countries is considered separately, then similarities and differences between them are highlighted. Finally, recommendations are given for countries considering making a transition in the governance model that will improve the health services provided and the health status of people in prison.

Copenhagen, Denmark: World Health Organization, Regional Office for Europe, 2020. 44p.

By Rita Komalasaria, Sarah Wilson and Sally Haw

Opioid Agonist Treatment (OAT) programmes are regarded as a gold standard treatment for people living with Opioid Use Disorders (OUDs). However, OAT programmes are often unavailable or poorly implemented in prisons, in spite of the large numbers of people living with OUDs and the high risk of HIV transmission in prison settings. Unusually, this systematic review synthesizes qualitative evidence relating to barriers to, and facilitators of, the implementation of OAT programmes in prisons in high- and low/middle-income countries (LMICs) to provide more nuanced, contextualised understandings of how prison stakeholders perceive and/or experience OAT programmes within different prison settings.

International Journal of Drug Policy, January 2021.