Rush to produce meds as Xi worries about rural areas

Mainland drugmakers have started rushing to produce anti-fever medicines and other treatments for Covid after President Xi Jinping said he was worried about an influx of holiday travelers to rural areas that are ill-equipped to deal with outbreaks.

Xi's comments come just over a month after Beijing abruptly axed zero-Covid controls that had largely shielded China's 1.4 billion people from the disease for three years but then sparked widespread protests in late November.

And as travel has ramped up during the holiday season, as many as 36,000 people could die each day from the disease, according to latest forecasts from UK-based health data firm Airfinity.

Beijing had revealed that nearly 60,000 people with Covid died in hospitals from December 8 to January 12 - a roughly 10-fold increase from previous disclosures. That number also excluded those who died at home, with experts saying official figures likely do not reflect the true toll.

"Based on the reports of hospitals being overwhelmed and long queues outside funeral homes, we might estimate a larger number of Covid deaths have occurred so far - maybe more than 600,000 rather than just 60,000," said Ben Cowling, an epidemiologist at the University of Hong Kong.

China's chaotic exit from a regime of mass lockdowns, travel restrictions and frequent testing has also prompted a run on drugs as people fend for themselves against the disease.

To meet soaring demand, drugmakers are ramping up operations to triple their capacity to make key fever and cough medicines.

China has relied on domestic vaccines to combat the pandemic, eschewing foreign-made ones, which some studies have suggested are more effective. Other foreign treatments for Covid have been hard to come by.

Pfizer anti-viral drug Paxlovid is available but very difficult to obtain through official channels while Merck & Co's antiviral treatment molnupiravir has also been approved for use but is not yet widely available.

At a meeting this week the National Medical Products Administration pledged to stabilize prices of Covid-related drugs and crack down on counterfeits.

Those particularly vulnerable to the virus are the elderly as many are not fully vaccinated and now face exposure as millions of urban workers arrive in home towns to reunite with families for the Lunar New Year.

"China's Covid prevention and control is still in a time of stress, but the light is ahead, persistence is victory," Xi said in a holiday message. "I am most worried about the rural areas and farmers. Medical facilities are relatively weak in rural areas, thus prevention is difficult and the task arduous."

He added that the elderly are a priority.

Airfinity has estimated that 62 million people could be infected between January 13 and 27 and that Covid-related deaths could peak at 36,000 a day on January 26 - up sharply from previous forecasts.

"Our forecast estimates a significant burden on China's health-care system for the next fortnight, and it is likely many treatable patients could die due to overcrowded hospitals and lack of care," said Airfinity analytics director Matt Linley.

REUTERS