BEIJING — Vice-Premier Sun Chunlan has urged more efforts to accelerate the research and development of COVID-19 drugs and strive for breakthroughs so as to safeguard people's health.

Sun, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, made the remarks during an inspection of the National Medical Products Administration on Oct 19.

Sun noted that 31 drugs have entered clinical trials since the COVID-19 outbreak, effectively raising the cure rate and reducing the mortality rate.

She urged speeding up the research and development of drugs for clinical treatment to adapt to the new changes in the global pandemic situation, new characteristics of virus strain variations and the needs of epidemic prevention and control.

Noting that traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played an effective role in treating COVID-19 patients, Sun called for efforts to promote TCM therapy around the world.