Ministry of Food and Drug Safety Budget 604.4 Billion Won... Strengthening Support for Vaccines and Children's Meals

[Asia Economy Reporter Seo So-jeong] The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety (MFDS) announced on the 2nd that next year's government budget has been set at a total of 604.4 billion KRW, an increase of 45.2 billion KRW (8.1%) compared to this year's budget of 559.2 billion KRW.

The budget for next year focuses on ▲ securing food safety for healthier consumers ▲ strengthening management of medicines and medical devices to ensure patient safety ▲ and establishing a proactive safety foundation for the future.

The MFDS stated, "We will solidly prepare a safety foundation for the post-COVID-19 era by supporting the domestic development, commercialization, and rapid supply of vaccines, which have a high import dependency, and conduct thorough hygiene and nutrition management even in small-scale daycare centers without mandatory nutritionist employment to ensure the safety of children's meals."

First, to prevent food poisoning in children's meals, the proportion of 'small-scale (under 100 children) daycare centers' receiving nutrition and hygiene management support from regional 'Children's Meal Management Support Centers' will be expanded to 90%. Additionally, a full inspection of group meal facilities with 50 or more children (600 million KRW), expansion of advanced analysis equipment for identifying causes of food poisoning bacteria (1.5 billion KRW), monitoring tests for imported foods purchased directly from overseas (300 million KRW), on-site consulting support for HACCP application to imported foods such as kimchi (100 million KRW), and research on building food safety management systems using new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and blockchain (1.8 billion KRW) will be promoted.

Management of medicines and medical devices will also be strengthened. Budgets have been allocated for developing a quality advancement model based on pharmaceutical design for building smart pharmaceutical factories (5.2 billion KRW), operating a regulatory science center for advanced biopharmaceuticals (900 million KRW), and establishing a long-term follow-up investigation system (2.9 billion KRW).

Support for the commercialization of innovative medical devices and the establishment of management systems (1.2 billion KRW), technical support for the commercialization of in vitro diagnostic medical devices (900 million KRW) will be expanded, and a next-generation medical product evaluation foundation utilizing big data produced in medical settings (4.1 billion KRW) will be established to conduct patient-centered medical product safety management.

To ensure the rapid domestic supply of COVID-19-related vaccines and therapeutics currently under development, a budget of 4.5 billion KRW has been allocated for reinforcing national testing equipment and constructing a Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) laboratory.

Furthermore, to increase domestic vaccine self-sufficiency, the operating support budget for the Hwasun 'Vaccine Safety Technology Support Center' will be expanded from 2 billion KRW to 5.8 billion KRW. Research on approval, review, and evaluation technologies for COVID-19 therapeutics, vaccines, masks, and other quarantine supplies (6.9 billion KRW) will be expanded, and a regulatory science talent development project (3.1 billion KRW) to lead the biohealth industry will also be launched.

In addition, the budget related to the completion of the Jeju 'National Herbal Medicine Resource Management Center' will be increased from 3.4 billion KRW to 15.6 billion KRW, and safety management of bio food materials such as cultured meat, which is attracting attention as future food, will be expanded (300 million KRW), along with international accreditation (ISO-17025) for food testing laboratories (1 billion KRW).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.