The first session of the CSTO Coordinating Council on Biosafety was held in St Petersburg

The first session of the CSTO Coordinating Council on Biosafety was held today, December 15, at the Boris Yeltsin Presidential Library in St Petersburg.
The Coordinating Council was established to coordinate activities and cooperation on preventing and countering biological threats, as well as to create a reliable biosafety system in the CSTO Member States.
Anna Popova, the head of the Russian side of the Council and the head of Rospotrebnadzor, was elected Chairwoman of the Coordinating Council.
Vladimir Bondurovsky, deputy Head of the CSTO PA Secretariat, presented information on biosafety-related activities of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly.
“Today we are witnessing the practical implementation of relevant decisions of the leaders of our countries and the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly adopted in 2021–2022, including the establishment of a body within the Organization that will deal with these pressing issues of collective security in a substantive and professional manner.
The events of the last three years – the coronavirus epidemic and the facts uncovered during the special military operation – have confirmed the relevance of collective efforts of the competent bodies of our states in the area of biological security,” said Vladimir Bondurovsky.
As reported in the Statement of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly on the Inadmissibility of the Development of Biological (Bacteriological) and Toxin Weapons, adopted on December 5, 2022, the role of the BWC has significantly increased amid modern biological security challenges.
“We declare our commitment to a world free of biological weapons and assume that the government agencies of the CSTO States will unite their efforts to coordinate work on the unconditional implementation of the Convention across the Organization and to strengthen the legislative framework in this area,” reads the Statement of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly.
As you may recall, more than seven years ago, monitoring activities of the Parliamentary Assembly in the regions of collective security revealed the factors of biological risk to the collective security in the area of responsibility of the Organization and near its borders. Appropriate attention was paid to responding to them.
Development of Recommendations on Legislative Support of Sanitary and Epidemiological (Medical and Biological) Security of the CSTO Member States was included in the Parliamentary Assembly’s main policy paper for 2021–2025 together with the CSTO Secretariat.
The next meeting of the Coordinating Council will be held in the Republic of Belarus in the second quarter of 2023.