China has approved the use of Pfizer to treat Covid-19 patients at a time when the country is scrambling to contain the largest outbreak of the coronavirus in two years.
And last month, China’s Medical Products Regulatory Authority approved the emergency use of the “Baxlovid” treatment tablets produced by the American company Pfizer, as the government’s move to include it in the Covid-19 treatment guidelines was announced this week.
Studies have revealed that the drug “Baxlovide” reduces the chances of hospitalization and death in patients with severe symptoms of Covid, and it may also be effective against the mutant Omicron.
According to the New York Times, the authorities had to adjust the treatment protocol to accommodate the increasing number of cases in more than twenty counties.
According to the latest guidelines, people who have tested positive for the virus and only have mild symptoms will not be required to be hospitalized, but must stay in central isolation facilities instead.
China is witnessing its largest increase in Covid-19 infections this month since the Corona virus first appeared in Wuhan more than two years ago before it became a global pandemic in the spring of 2020.
Extensive examinations and scenes of health officials in protective suits returned to the streets of cities on a scale that China has not witnessed since the beginning of the outbreak of the “Covid-19” pandemic, in light of a significant increase in the number of infections with the Omicron mutant, which prompted the country’s authorities to announce a closure that included tens of millions of people throughout country Tuesday.
On Tuesday, China announced 5,280 new infections with the Corona virus, more than double the number recorded the previous day, at a time when the mutated Omicron was spreading across the country, which followed a hardline approach based on “zero Covid cases.”
“The epidemic in some regions is escalating rapidly, and the risk of its spread in the community is relatively high,” said Li Zhenglong, deputy director of the Office of Disease Control and Prevention of the National Health Commission of China, on Tuesday.