CHONGQING - Pharmaceutical companies around China, including Chongqing, a city with a population of more than 30 million, are expanding COVID-related medicines production to fill the current shortage of medical supplies.
With the COVID pandemic spreading at its fastest pace since 2020, China faces an emergency shortage of COVID-related medicines. Due to Omicron's rapid infection and the subsequent panic-buying by consumers, clinics and hospitals did not have enough of the medication.
At the State Council executive meeting on December 20, Premier Li Keqiang emphasized that solid efforts will be made to meet people's needs for anti-COVID-19 and medical supplies and that relevant enterprises will be supported in bringing production to its full potential. In addition, international cooperation will be enhanced, and urgently needed supplies will be imported as appropriate.
Anti-Covid medicines manufactured at full capacity
A biomedical laboratory in Chongqing High-tech Zone. ( Photo/Shangyou News )
Taiji Group Co., Ltd., a local company in Chongqing that manufactures and markets medicines, healthcare products, medical packing products, and medical instruments, has produced over 36 million tablets a week, including COVID treatments like paracetamol tablets, whose production mounts to 1.1 million tablets a day.
Ibuprofen Immediate Release Tablets, which the State Council of China recommends as a medicine for COVID symptoms, are produced at a rate of 350,000 tablets a day. Those medicines are needed by clinics and hospitals around the city and are quickly delivered to health institutions once produced.
The whole society has mobilized to fix the medicine shortage in China, and it has been reported that many pharmaceutical companies have increased the production of COVID-related medicines.
In Yiwu, Zhejiang province, a company that produces Kangbingdu Koufuye, an oral liquid Chinese patent medicine that can release relevant symptoms of COVID-19, expanded their production capacity of this medicine to about 30,000 boxes (18 vials in a box) a day. Before the expansion, the number was 7,000 boxes, as reported by CCTV.
Beijing is also beefing up the production and supply of drugs, especially analgesics and antipyretics, to meet the needs of people infected with COVID-19, according to Xinhua.
The data of China Resources Pharmaceutical Commercial Group Co., Ltd. shows that the company has supplied more than 3.5 million boxes of anti-epidemic drugs, including fever medications, to over 4,000 clients across Beijing in the past weeks, including nearly 300 hospitals, more than 2,200 community health centers, and over 1,500 retail pharmacies.
Free medicines delivered in some cities
A Xinhu Pharmacy store in Chongqing posted ibuprofen free delivery in front of the store. (Photo provided to iChongqing)
Pharmacies in several Chinese provinces, including Shandong, Henan, Guangdong, Chongqing, and Jiangxi, dispense a limited number of pills for free to the public.
In Chongqing, some local pharmacies organized their stores to deliver free tablets to the public. iChongqing contacted the store manager at Wanhe Pharmacy Nanhu Road Branch and was told that the Red Cross Society helped with the company's free delivery practices.
"We have delivered 4,000 ibuprofen release tablets daily from December 20 to 21 to the public in 10 of our stores around the city," said the manager, "but now the free delivery has ended. If there are people in urgent need, we will continue to deliver some."
In Dongguan, Guangdong province, pills free delivery is offered in many drug stores. An official of Guangdong Dongguan Sinopharm Group Co., Ltd. said the free delivery actions could also help to stabilize the market price of the pills, as a massive number of tablets flowing into the people in real need instead of those speculators, according to Caixin's report.