The Chinese drug regulator reported on its website on Friday about the emergency approval, which is subject to conditions.
The drug could be used to treat patients with initially mild symptoms who have risk factors for a severe course of COVID-19, such as serious illnesses, old age, obesity, diabetes, heart or lung diseases or cancer, the authority said. Pfizer approved the drug Paxlovid in February.
The most populous country on earth is currently experiencing a huge corona wave, which is particularly affecting people who are old or have previous illnesses. Hospitals are overwhelmed, crematoria can’t cremate the corpses fast enough.
According to Western estimates, tens of thousands may have died. But in China, according to a very narrow definition, only someone who died of pneumonia or respiratory failure after an infection is counted as a corona death.
After almost three years of lockdowns, mass testing and forced quarantine, China abruptly announced an end to its zero-COVID policy on December 7th. The reason for the turnaround was that the infections with the new omicron variants were no longer as severe.
Experts saw the main reason, however, in the fact that the strict measures could no longer keep up with the explosive spread. The restrictions also increasingly weighed on the second largest economy in the world.
According to officially unconfirmed internal estimates, 248 million people or 18 percent of the population were infected with Corona in the first three weeks of December alone. According to calculations by the London-based research company Airfinity, 1.8 million people are newly infected every day, while around 9,000 die. According to calculations, the number of corona deaths could increase to 1.7 million by the end of April. The Chinese authorities no longer publish official figures.
Merck shares are up 0.12 percent at $110.95 in premarket trading on the NYSE.
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