China’s efforts to bolster health care system against future crises will see growth in demand for medical equipment outlive Covid-19 pandemic, says Mindray

Government procurement programmes will keep orders high for the next couple of years, says company secretary of Mindray, China’s biggest producer of medical devices

To meet demand for ventilators and patient monitoring systems, the company has redeployed workers from other production lines and added 1,000 new workers

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China’s demand for patient monitoring systems and ventilators will keep growing even with Covid-19 largely under control, Li says. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 5:00pm, 18 Jan 2021Updated: 9:01pm, 18 Jan 2021

China’s demand for patient monitoring systems and ventilators will keep growing even with Covid-19 largely under control, according to a senior official of Shenzhen Mindray Bio-Medical Electronics, the country’s largest producer of medical devices.

Government procurement programmes to bolster the resilience of the medical system in the world’s second biggest health care market against future disease outbreaks will keep orders for equipment high for the next couple of years, said company secretary May Li Wenmei.

“While there have been rising Covid-19 cases in some regions of mainland China recently, they themselves have not directly resulted in demand for our equipment,” Li told the Post on the sidelines of a JP Morgan health care conference on Friday.

“However, since the outbreak subsided last year, both central and local governments have lifted requirements for public health contingency medical supplies, which means elevated demand for ventilators will be sustained in the next two to three years.”

Expansion of hospitals will see the number of intensive care unit beds in China nearly double to 190,000 from 100,000 currently in the next few years, she said.