Main outcomes of the meeting of the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization held from 9 to 10 December 2020

Overview

The 73rd meeting of the WHO Expert Committee on Biological Standardization (ECBS) was held on 9 and 10 December 2020 by Zoom video conferencing due to the restrictions imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Following its annual October meeting, this second exceptional meeting in 2020 focused on addressing a number of urgent biological standardization issues related to COVID-19. ECBS members, regulatory authority representatives and subject matter experts from governmental organizations participated in the first three sessions of the meeting. The first of these sessions was an open information-sharing session involving all participants, including non-state actors. All decisions and recommendations regarding the establishment of measurement standards were made in a closed session attended only by ECBS members and WHO staff. A full report of the meeting will be published in the WHO Technical Report Series in 2021.