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A major Chinese pharmaceutical company is racing to meet the demand for paracetamol, a medication used to treat fever and pain, as the country deals with the coronavirus outbreak.
"We were working even during the Spring Festival holiday," said Zhou Guanjun, an employee of Anqiu Lu'an Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd, located in the city of Anqiu, in east China's Shandong Province.
The company specializes in making active pharmaceutical ingredients for paracetamol and is one of the biggest makers of its kind in the world.
The company is moving heaven and earth to keep the factories rolling 24 hours a day.
"We work in shifts, while the machines keep running," Zhou said. "We wear masks in the factory every day, and we disinfect computers and keyboards."
"We have 1,260 employees, and we require them to stay at home whenever possible when they are not working to reduce risks of infection," said Lu'an's general manager Wang Jun.
Lu'an also pays attention to the international market and has partnerships with companies such as Bayer and Pfizer.
"We can make 40,000 tonnes of active pharmaceutical ingredients for paracetamol, which makes us one of the biggest manufacturers in the field globally," Wang said. "We sell our products to more than 100 countries and regions around the world."
Wang Jun said the company wants to make more contributions to the battle against the coronavirus.
Since the virus outbreak, the company has donated more than 106,000 boxes of medication worth more than 1 million yuan (around 142,100 U.S. dollars). It has also supplied more than 800 tonnes of antipyretic and analgesic ingredients and products to the domestic market, helping a variety of pharmaceuticals produce medications to fight the pathogen-caused illness.