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A spike in flu cases is fueling a shortage of antivirals at Chinese pharmacies, with empty shelves reminiscent of the drug frenzy triggered by the explosive Covid outbreak that accompanied the country’s reopening.
Supplies of the medicine, known by its generic name oseltamivir and sometimes sold as Tamiflu, have appeared to run low at both brick-and-mortar and online pharmacies across parts of China in recent days, with some stores selling out their floor stocks and only offering deliveries that will take days to arrive, local media reported over the weekend.
Flu appears to have crept back into the more than 1.4 billion population even as China’s latest, biggest Covid outbreak waned. The rate of positive flu cases jumped by more than 10 percentage points — to 14.3 per cent — in the week ending February 19.
The rate overtook Covid for the first time since early December, according to data released by the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, when China’s pivot from Covid Zero restrictions caused infections to proliferate.
Shares of flu-related firms climbed. YiChang HEC ChangJiang Pharmaceutical Co., which makes oseltamivir, jumped as much as 12 per cent before paring its gain to 2 per cent. BrightGene Bio-Medical Technology Co. climbed as much as 8.9 per cent, while Hunan Nucien Pharmaceutical surged as much as 16 per cent.
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The flu surge has since last week also triggered class suspension at schools across a number of cities. China’s health and educational authorities have allowed schools to put in-class teaching on hold for a few days following the detection of clusters of infections ranging from flu and Covid to norovirus and the chickenpox.
The quick depletion of flu medicine at pharmacies is reminiscent of the shortage of drugs ranging from antipyretics to Covid antivirals — including Pfizer Inc.’s Paxlovid — as cases spiked across China in early December, though the current surge in flu cases is far less dramatic.
A temporary tight supply or shortage of flu antivirals has been seen before in China. Some pharmacies have stocked fewer flu antivirals amid expectations of low incidence of flu disease amid lockdowns and social distancing since 2020, as Covid swept the world.
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