According to a recent survey of several community health service centers in Shanghai by the reporter of National Business Daily, some community hospitals are well-prepared and some are in short supply. But without exception, at present, the prescriptions of antiviral drugs in grass-roots community hospitals in COVID-19 are strict, and generally require giving priority to the use of antiviral drugs such as paroxetine and acyclovir to people who need attention.
As for the price of paciclovir, although it is reported that personal payment is very cheap after medical insurance reimbursement, grassroots hospitals have told reporters that the price of self-funded part should be determined according to personal circumstances, and the reimbursement ratio of each person is different, according to the retirement age of the elderly and medical insurance payment. It depends.
Supply capacity
As a drug with high expectations in the market, the surge in demand in a short period of time and the shortage of domestic market supply are the reasons for the high price of paciclovir and the difficulty in finding a drug. But in fact, domestic enterprises do not lack the ability to supply paciclovir on a large scale. On 2021116, Pfizer entered into a licensing agreement with the non-profit organization "Drug Patent Pool", allowing it to further authorize other pharmaceutical manufacturers to produce generic drugs of paciclovir.
In March 2022, the Pharmaceutical Patent Pool announced that it had signed agreements with 35 companies around the world (including five China companies such as Fosun Pharma and Huahai Pharmaceutical) to produce and supply paciclovir to 95 low-and middle-income countries according to the agreement, but China was not one of them. This means that although some enterprises in China already have the ability to produce paciclovir, they cannot directly supply drugs to the domestic market due to the patent licensing agreement.