During the Spring Festival, many member enterprises of China Association for Medical Devices Industry (CAMDI) actively responded to the national call and fought on the front line of the battle against the COVID-19 while CAMDI staff have also been working closely with relevant departments to coordinate and ensure the offering of emergency supplies.
I. Proposal: Fight alongside the government and the public
COVID-19 cases occurred in many places across China and the situation was very urgent in the epidemic prevention and control. The Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council paid high attention to the epidemic and called all industries to the front line of the epidemic prevention and control. On January 31, CAMDI issued the Proposal on Prevention and Control of COVID-19 (hereinafter referred to as "the Proposal") that calls on all member enterprises to work together with the government and the public and resolutely fights and wins the battle against the epidemic.
The Proposal states that the State Council issued an emergency notice requiring the resumption of work and production in manufacturers for key supplies of the epidemic prevention and control; The Ministry of Civil Affairs and the State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) prepared work plans on the epidemic prevention and control and required industry associations to well guide work relating to the prevention and control. The Proposal also shows that the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA) and some local medical products administrations have initiated emergency approval procedures for medical devices, and have made an appeal that enterprises in the industry shall study hard and seize opportunities to take active actions, surmount all difficulties and resume production as soon as possible to satisfy urgent needs of society, accelerate scientific research and development of innovative products in response to the epidemic, and strive to improve the emergency manufacturing capacity and the innovation capacity for sustainable development in China's medical device industry, so as to make their own contributions in effective response to the public health emergency. In the Proposal, CAMDI calls member enterprises to following actions: cooperate with relevant departments in market supply, utilize their own resources to expand the domestic and foreign purchase channels, increase commodity release and replenish stock reserves, refusing hoarding and rise in price during the epidemic, and effectively safeguard the normal operation order and the rights and benefits of consumers; strengthen the publicity and popularization of knowledge on the epidemic prevention and control and guide respective staff to consciously complete personal protection following scientific guidance; undertake social responsibilities, and take appropriate measures to support related areas and contribute to winning the battle against the epidemic if some enterprises have enough capacities; disseminate scientific and correct information on the epidemic prevention, effectively publicize and guide the epidemic prevention, and refrain from starting and spreading rumors, believing rumors, panicking and gathering.
Upon the issuance of the Proposal, numerous member enterprises took active actions in response to the epidemic. TechWorld Medical, Lepu Medical, Infervision, SHINVA, WEGO, Yuwell, and member enterprises of Hunan Association for Medical Devices Industry responded to CAMDI to donate supplies and cashes, resume work and production and participate in the epidemic prevention and control.
II. Coordination: Ensuring the provision of emergency supplies
On January 26, at the Press Conference of the State Council on COVID-19 Epidemic, Wang Jiangping, Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, revealed that Wuhan required 100,000 medical protective suits every day in the demand list sent to the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), 3 million suits in a month. Due to rapid increase in demand in a very short time, insufficiency in medical protective supplies and reserve of upstream raw materials, and difficulties in the resumption of work for workers and logistics and transportation because of the epidemic and the Spring Festival, many enterprises were affected in production with great difficulties in coordination of emergency supplies.
Since January 20, CAMDI has successively received the requirement for production capacity investigation of medical protective supplies from MIIT and National Development and Reform Commission, so the association immediately collected the product lists and contact information of relevant enterprises and organized the cooperation of those enterprises with ministries and commissions. The efforts have laid a foundation for MIIT in promotion of the resumption of work and production, urgent allocation of scarce protective supplies, later unified allocation, dispatch of special personnel to 15 manufacturers of medical protective suits, and other decisions.
Local governments, embassies in China, medical institutions on the frontline, manufacturers, dealers required medical supplies, help with logistics and consultation on policies of imported products from CAMDI. In the face of these requirements, CAMDI personnel have been working closely with relevant departments to well coordinate and ensure the provision of emergency supplies during the Spring Festival and have created a "CAMDI group for epidemic supplies" for manufacturers, demanders, logistics entities, aiming to "unite all parties as one, promote the fight against the epidemic, jointly prevent and control the epidemic, and safeguard people's health". All departments of CAMDI made great efforts with due diligence to coordinate resources from all parties, tried to find domestic and foreign sources of protective supplies, kept an eye on the industry trends and actively promoted the implementation of appropriate emergency policies.
The relevant departments took the following actions: assisting the Ministry of Finance in identifying the list of duty-free donated medical devices; assisting the National Development and Reform Commission in compiling the list of thermometer manufacturers; coordinating the purchase of urgently needed supplies in Beijing federations of women and children and other entities and individuals; finding supplies for Chaoyang District Government of Beijing, Gaochun District Government of Nanjing and military regions; coordinating the rapid approval of enterprises settled in Tianjin manufacturing pneumovirus detection reagents; helping Lepu Medical find the sources of 400,000 chips urgently needed for production of Infrared forehead thermometers; helping enterprises consult customs clearance policies of urgently imported medical devices unregistered in China to relevant departments.
On January 30, the Medical Supplies Support Group of Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council in Response to COVID-19 Outbreak issued the Notice on Import and Other Related Issues of Protective Suit During the Epidemic. The notice specifies that products which are urgently imported from Japan, America, Europe and other foreign countries in compliance with respective specifications for medical protective suits can used when enterprises concerned can provide supporting documents of overseas medical devices for marketing and the certificate of analysis and make commitment in product quality and safety, so as to meet urgent needs for the epidemic prevention and control. Currently, CAMDI is actively finding overseas purchase channels to ensure the supply of medical devices urgently needed for medical workers and patients.
III. Action: Member enterprises work together to fight against the epidemic
On January 30, the General Office of the State Council issued the Urgent Notice on Effectively Organizing the Resumption of Work and Production and the Scheduling in Manufacturers of Key Supplies for Epidemic Prevention and Control. The notice requires that people's governments at all levels shall quickly organize the resumption of work and production in local manufacturers of medical protective suits, N95 respirators, medical goggles, negative pressure ambulances and relevant drugs. After the outbreak, member enterprises built a "community of shared destiny" in China's medical device industry, organized overtime work of staff to produce medical supplies urgently needed in affected areas, overcame difficulties in delivery and logistics shutdown during the Spring Festival, and arranged for special vehicles and persons to deliver their products to Wuhan, Hubei and other places across China in support of the epidemic prevention and control as soon as possible.
On January 21, Fosun Pharma quickly set up an emergency response team in the medical diagnosis products to follow up the real-time epidemic situations and develop a nucleic acid test reagent for novel coronavirus as soon as possible. On January 24, Fosun International, the parent company of Fosun Pharma, announced the launch of global deployment plan of medical supplies. By the end of the day (24:00), the company has purchased the first batch of over 270,000 protective suits and over 320,000 surgical masks from Britain, Germany, Portugal, Japan, India and other countries.
From January 22 to January 26, SHINVA delivered to medical institutions in Hubei over 200,000 bottles of hand disinfectants, 9 mobile DRs, 1903 air purifying sterilizers and 14 sterilizing devices.
On January 23, upon urgent discussion and coordination, Lepu Medical decided to donate to hospitals in Hubei the first batch of urgently needed supplies valued at over CNY 1 million (2,000 electronic thermometers and 700 fingertip oximeters). The production line for Wuhan did not stop and remained at full capacity even On New Year's Eve, in which technicians worked in two shifts.
After the outbreak, Yuwell immediately built an Anti-epidemic Supplies Distribution Command Center and four supply systems of Class S, Class A, Class B, Class C to allocate supplies to front-line affected areas across China, as well as a support vehicle team for bulk goods logistics in affected areas to assist. The production did not stop with several production workshops operating continuously and efficiently and products did not rise during the Spring Festival in Yuwell. Yuwell ensured that medical devices and disinfection products for fighting the epidemic were produced 24 hours a day and strictly controlled the product price system.
On January 24, the New Year's Eve, the board of directors and management of Ezisurg Medical called an emergency meeting and decided to immediately donate CNY 1 million to Wuhan Charity Federation and CNY 450,000 to Beijing Huawei Public Welfare Foundation to support the epidemic prevention and control in Wuhan.
From January 27, Bluesail Medical adjusted 5 production lines for the production of epidemic gloves to ensure the daily supply of more than 4 million gloves. Meanwhile, Bluesail Medical also utilized global resources to allocate supplies and urgently solicited specialized protective suits, goggles, face masks and other urgently needed medical supplies in continuous support of the front line.
On January 27, BMC donated 100 RESmart respirators (bi-level respirator with the functions of blood oxygen monitoring and remote data transmission) to support hospitals in Hubei and relieve medical pressure. On February 1, the ResPro series respirator, a new product of BMC and bi-level non-invasive respirator with high-flow oxygen therapy, was granted the registration certificate smoothly.
As of January 27, URIT donated 12 medical testing devices including 5-Part-Diff Hematology Analyzers, urinalysis systems and fully automatic biochemical analyzers as well as a batch of auxiliary reagents valued at CNY 1.5 million to two affected areas of Wuhan and Huanggang for the first batch.
On January 28, WEGO donated to Red Cross Society of China Wuhan Branch surgical gowns, disinfectants and other medical supplies with the total value of over CNY 3 million to support COVID-19 prevention and control.
On January 29, Neusoft Medical formally announced that the company donated one NeuViz 128CT and one set of Neusoft Intelligent Medical Image Cloud and one set of remote advanced post-processing software to Leishenshan Hospital in Wuhan, as well as one NeuVizPrime CT, one set of Neusoft Intelligent Medical Image Cloud and one set of remote advanced post-processing software to Tongji Hospital of Tongji Medical College of HUST, with the total value of CNY 27 million.
On January 31, Jafron Biomedical Co., Ltd. donated CNY 2 million in cash and medical supplies of CNY 5 million, with a total value of over CNY 7 million. Those medical supplies included HA380 Resin Hemoperfusion Catridge specially developed for patients in severe or critical condition, patent technology of DPMAS artificial liver, DX-10 Multi-function Blood Purification Device and other blood purification devices and consumables, which were mainly used to treat COVID-19 patients in severe condition within designated hospitals in Hubei.
To fully cooperate with the epidemic prevention and control, the medical supplies donated by the foreign-invested medical device enterprises are used for the treatment of infected patients and the protection of medical staff.
Abbott (China) announced a total donation of CNY 18.1 million in cash and medical supplies to the Chinese Red Cross Foundation and the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention, including fully-automated biochemical analyzers (ARCHITECT c8000 System) and i-STAT handheld blood analyzers.
BD (China) donated two batches of medical supplies to Wuhan on January 25 and 31.
On January 27, Agfa Healthcare donated medical aid equipment valued at CNY 5 million for free to the frontline where the epidemic was severe (50 medical film printers and 500 dry medical films).
On January 29, PerkinElmer donated fully-automated nucleic acid detection kits and reagents valued at CNY 1.35 million to the China Population Welfare Foundation, which will be used to support Heilongjiang Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention in epidemic prevention and control of COVID-19 and improvement of detection efficiency of the novel coronavirus.
On January 31, Ortho Clinical Diagnostics Trading (China) Co., Ltd. donated 20,000 masks (model: KF94) and one VITROS 5600 fully-automated biochemistry and immunoassay system to China Population Welfare Foundation, with a total value of over CNY 1 million.
On January 31, the Philips Foundation announced to donate medical equipment (CT, remote consultation and ultrasound solution for critical cases, non-invasive ventilator and patient monitoring equipment, etc.) and air purifiers worth CNY 15 million (eq. EUR 2 million) through the Wuhan Youth Development Foundation with the help of Philips (China).
Facing the epidemic, CAMDI is duty-bound and will cooperate with peers from all walks of life to make concerted efforts in the fight against COVID-19.