The Surge of the 'Uiyakpum Amshijang'... Aftermath of China's With-Corona Policy

Surge in Confirmed Cases Causes Medicine Shortage Crisis
Generic Drugs Circulated on SNS Weibo

In China, where COVID-19 cases are surging, a shortage of medicines has led to a thriving black market.

Recently, Bloomberg reported on the COVID-19 situation in China, stating, "Posts about trading COVID-19 treatments such as Paxlovid, fever reducers, and cold medicines are continuously appearing on local social networking services (SNS)." Currently, Chinese netizens are selling fever reducers and other medicines in zipper bags through SNS.

Pills are portioned in a zipper bag labeled "Antipyretic." Photo by Weibo screen capture.

Among them, one Chinese netizen posted that they had purchased a large quantity of Indian-made generic Paxlovid. This netizen said, "Indian-made Paxlovid can be shipped immediately upon payment."

Currently, Paxlovid is traded in China at 2,300 yuan (about 430,000 KRW) per box with approval from the National Medical Products Administration. However, due to supply shortages and high prices, more people are seeking Indian-made generics on SNS.

Oral COVID-19 treatment 'Paxlovid'.

On the other hand, some have purchased genuine Paxlovid at a premium through overseas channels. One Chinese netizen revealed that they bought a box of Paxlovid from a Hong Kong seller for 5,800 yuan (about 1,000,000 KRW), twice the official price, which became a hot topic locally.

Regarding this, The New York Times (NYT) criticized, "The medicine shortage is fueling anxiety and anger among the Chinese people," adding, "If the lockdown had been lifted gradually over about two months, such chaos would not have occurred."

Meanwhile, on the 21st, China's National Medical Products Administration announced at a press conference that it would "activate emergency approval procedures to accelerate the review and approval of urgently needed medicines for COVID-19 clinical treatment." So far, Chinese authorities have conditionally approved five types of COVID-19 vaccines and granted emergency use authorization for eight other vaccines. They have also approved 11 types of treatments and 128 types of various testing reagents.