Chinese regulators announced on Saturday that conditional approval has been granted for Pfizer’s COVID-19 drug Paxlovid.

This makes it the first oral pill for the disease to be authorised for use in the country. It has been recommended for people with mild to moderate illness who are at a high risk of developing critical disease.

The pill, produced by pharmaceutical giant Pfizer, has reportedly demonstrated success in scaling back COVID-related fatalities and hospitalisations. In December, the company had submitted data from its trials which showed that the use of Paxlovid led to a reduction in the chance of hospitalisation or death by almost 89% when given three days after symptom onset.

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“This is an important milestone in our fight against COVID-19,” a Pfizer representative said in a statement without providing information on whether China had entered a procurement deal with the company so far, according to a Reuters report. 

While providing conditional approval to the pill, the National Medical Products Administration in China said further study needs to be conducted and submitted to the regulator to gain more clarity on the treatment’s effectiveness.

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The pill has been approved in around 40 countries, and the European Union has allowed member states to use it before formal authorisation, in order to contain the highly contagious omicron variant of the coronavirus, according to a report by Al Jazeera.

The US FDA authorised the Pfizer drug in December 2021. “With today’s action, we add the first-ever oral treatment to our nation’s medicine cabinet and take a significant step forward in our path out of the pandemic. As soon as emerging science showed the promise of this antiviral, we acted quickly and aggressively to pre-purchase 10 million treatment courses — more than any other country in the world,” President Joe Biden had said.

So far, China has only used indigenous vaccines to vaccinate nearly 90% of its population. It has not yet approved COVID-19 vaccines by other countries.

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Officials from Pfizer reportedly said that the pharma major is in talks with over 100 countries about the pill, and can provide 120 million courses if the need be.