Beijing combats medicine supply shortage

Beijing medication authority has organised related companies to accelerate the purchase from overseas and increase imported medicines from e-commerce platforms to help ease the domestic shortage of COVID-19 related treatments, senior official said on Monday.

Beijing has taken multiple measures to ensure medicine supplies for the public to cope with the ongoing COVID-19 outbreaks, said Wang Houting, deputy head of the Beijing Municipal Medical Products Administration at a news conference.

"We have received support of medicine goods from many provinces and cities including Shandong, Hebei, Jiangsu, Shanxi, Heilongjiang provinces and the city of Shanghai," he said. "Next, Beijing will also offer our support with local pharmaceutical companies' products for other provinces and cities."

At present, 13 pharmaceutical companies in Beijing are producing more than 20 types of medicines at full capacity. The output on Sunday has tripled compared to the previous day, according to Wang.

The four companies for antigen test kits in Beijing can produce 8 million kits daily at present.

The supply-demand situation of medicines for COVID-19 in the city is close to balancing after the great efforts being made by all unites, Wang said.