A total of 13 pharmaceutical companies in Beijing are currently operating at full capacity in a bid to meet the needs of people infected with COVID-19.

With the new round of efforts to increase the production capacity of medical supplies and drug procurement volume, the medicine shortage situation in Beijing will be fundamentally improved, said Wang Houting, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Medical Products Administration, at a press conference on Monday.

According to Wang, the 13 pharmaceutical companies can produce over 20 kinds of medicines in need, and their daily drug production volume on Dec. 18 had increased to three times that of the previous day. Four antigen test kit manufacturers have increased their production capacity to 800 million kits per day.

Due to the support of the National Healthcare Security Administration, six medicines have been added to the temporary medical insurance.

In the meantime, organized by the local authorities, cross-border e-commerce platforms in Beijing have scaled up their global procurement efforts for COVID-related drugs, with pharmaceutical wholesalers working to diversify their channels for drug supplies.

Wang said that COVID-19 related drugs will be allocated according to demand and distributed in a targeted manner in medical institutions, community healthcare service stations and drug retailers across the city. The needs of vulnerable groups shall be fully met in the first place, he added.