Chinese drugmakers have rushed to
make anti-fever medicines and other treatments for Covid-19, after President Xi Jinping said he was worried about
an influx of holiday travellers to rural areas ill-equipped to
deal with sudden outbreaks.
Xi’s comments on Thursday come just over a month after his government
abruptly axed his strict “zero-Covid” controls that had largely
shielded China’s 1.4 billion people from the disease for three
years but sparked widespread protests in late November.
As travel ramps up during the busy Lunar New Year holiday
season, as many as 36,000 people could die each day from the
disease, according to the latest forecasts from UK-based health
data firm Airfinity.
“China’s Covid prevention and control is still in a time of stress, but the light is ahead, persistence is victory,” Xi said on Wednesday in a holiday greetings message carried by state broadcaster CCTV.
“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 is arduous,” Xi said, adding that the elderly were a top priority.
China said last Saturday that nearly 60,000 people with
Covid had died in hospitals between December 8 and January 12 – a
roughly ten-fold increase from previous disclosures.
However, that number excludes those who die at home, and
some doctors in China have said they are discouraged from
putting Covid on death certificates. Health experts say China’s
official figures likely do not reflect the true toll of the
virus.
“Based on the reports of hospitals being overwhelmed and
long queues outside funeral homes, we might estimate that 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 Hong Kong University.
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Tens of millions infected
Airfinity on Wednesday estimated 62 million people could be infected with the virus between January 13-27 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 healthcare system for the next fortnight and it is likely that many treatable patients could die due to overcrowded hospitals and lack of care,” Airfinity’s analytics director Matt Linley said.
China’s chaotic exit from a regime of mass lockdowns, travel
restrictions and frequent Covid testing, has also prompted a run
on drugs as people fend for themselves against the disease.
To meet soaring demand, drugmakers in China are ramping up
operations to triple their capacity to make key fever and cough
medicines, the state-run China Daily reported on Thursday.
China has relied on domestic vaccines to combat the
pandemic, eschewing foreign-made ones which some studies have
suggested are more effective, while other foreign treatments for
Covid-19 have been hard to come by in China.
Pfizer’s Covid-19 anti-viral drug Paxlovid is
available in China but has been very difficult to obtain through
official channels, according to media reports and personal
accounts. Merck & Co’s antiviral treatment molnupiravir
has also been approved for use but is not yet widely available.
At a meeting this week, China’s National Medical Products
Administration pledged to stabilise the prices of Covid-related
drugs and crack down on counterfeit sales.
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