ILAC continues to monitor advice to assess the developments and risks following the outbreak of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The situation has led to safety concerns and travel restrictions in some economies that may affect accredited conformity assessment activities.

Accreditation bodies may be considering and/or implementing alternative arrangements to conduct assessments such conducting assessments remotely or rescheduling activities if necessary. These arrangements where required are being put in place to ensure the health and safety of accreditation body staff, assessment team members and laboratory and inspection body staff, whilst not compromising the integrity of the accreditation process. Details of specific actions that may be required by an accreditation body to comply with the advice from the government authorities will be released as and when required within each economy. The contact details for the accreditation bodies that are signatories to the ILAC MRA are available from https://ilac.org/signatory-search/. This directory is searchable by economy.

In relation to the transition of accreditation bodies to ISO/IEC 17011:2017 a further joint statement from IAF and ILAC will be released later this week.

With regard to the transition of laboratories to ISO/IEC 17025:2017 a further statement will be released in mid-April following the receipt and review of the scheduled transition progress reports from the recognised regions later this month.