Disease Control Headquarters Confirms Additional Budget of 2.3484 Trillion KRW for COVID-19 Vaccine Procurement

Vaccine Purchase Cost for a Total of 79 Million Doses: 3.8067 Trillion KRW

[Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Ji-hee] The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency announced on the 25th that an additional 2.3484 trillion KRW was reflected in the supplementary budget for 2021 to cover the cost of purchasing COVID-19 vaccines from overseas.

The total cost required to purchase vaccines for 79 million people, for which the government has signed purchase contracts, amounts to 3.8067 trillion KRW. This includes 10 million doses from COVAX Facility, 10 million doses of AstraZeneca, 13 million doses of Pfizer, 6 million doses of Janssen, 20 million doses of Moderna, and 20 million doses of Novavax. Of this, the additional cost required this year, excluding the budget already secured, is 2.3484 trillion KRW. Previously, a total of 1.2133 trillion KRW had already been secured, including 356.2 billion KRW from last year's usage and supplementary budget and 857.1 billion KRW from this year's contingency fund.

So far, the government has been sequentially expanding advance purchase contracts according to the COVID-19 vaccine procurement plan. Corresponding funds such as advance payments have also been prepared. Additionally, since detailed budget calculations can be finalized after negotiations are completed and vaccine types, unit prices, and quantities are confirmed, the additional costs reflecting the final vaccine balance were included in this supplementary budget.

Furthermore, 1.1 trillion KRW from the contingency fund was also allocated to support infrastructure and implementation costs for COVID-19 vaccinations, as well as additional support for quarantine responses due to the prolonged pandemic. With the confirmation of the supplementary budget, the total expenditure of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency in 2021 (excluding the contingency fund) increased from 991.7 billion KRW to 3.3401 trillion KRW.

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