[2022 Budget] Additional Purchase of 90 Million COVID-19 Vaccine Doses Next Year

5 Trillion Won Allocated for Infectious Disease Response
Global Vaccine Fund 1 Trillion Won Over 2 Years

As the government sets a goal to raise the first-dose vaccination rate to 70% by Chuseok, citizens who received the vaccine are waiting in the adverse reaction monitoring area at the vaccination center set up at Chungmu Sports Center in Jung-gu, Seoul, on the 30th. According to the COVID-19 Vaccination Response Promotion Team on the day, the total number of people who have received the first dose of the vaccine is 28,641,079, accounting for 55.8% of the total population. Photo by Moon Honam munonam@

The government will purchase an additional 90 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines for use next year. To secure domestic vaccines, a global vaccine fund worth 1 trillion won will be established over two years starting next year.

According to the 2022 budget plan announced by the government on the 31st, the budget for expanding the infectious disease response system, including vaccines and quarantine, has been significantly increased from 882.9 billion won this year to 5.6376 trillion won next year. About half of this will be used for additional COVID-19 vaccine purchases. First, the government will purchase 80 million doses of overseas messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna with most of the budget, 2.4079 trillion won. Additionally, 192 billion won has been allocated for the pre-purchase of 10 million doses of domestically developed vaccines that succeed in development. Furthermore, 405.7 billion won and 147.4 billion won have been allocated respectively for vaccination implementation costs at private commissioned medical institutions and for vaccination supplies and vaccine distribution costs to support vaccination. To respond to the prolonged COVID-19 pandemic, 1.5359 trillion won will be used for quarantine support such as compensation for medical institution losses.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced a budget of 96.9377 trillion won for next year, including responses to new infectious diseases such as COVID-19. This is an 8.2% increase from 89.5766 trillion won this year and accounts for 16% of the total government budget for the second consecutive year. The social welfare sector increased by 6.7% to 80.8171 trillion won compared to this year, and the health sector increased by 16.8% to 16.1206 trillion won.

The Ministry of Health and Welfare will invest 27.4 billion won in domestic vaccine development projects for responding to new infectious diseases including COVID-19. It allocated 10.5 billion won for clinical support of mRNA-based vaccines, a new technology attracting attention used in Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. It will spend 12.1 billion won to develop vaccines for viruses with frequent mutations and infectious diseases with high pandemic potential such as MERS and SARS, and to expand vaccine platform technologies.

553 billion won has been allocated for building a global vaccine hub. Of this, 50 billion won will be invested in policy fund capital formation for vaccine development and production companies. Two funds worth 500 billion won annually will be sequentially established over two years until 2023, with 50 billion won in national funds supported annually. Additionally, 2 billion won and 3.3 billion won have been allocated respectively for training specialized personnel and strengthening competitiveness of raw and subsidiary materials.

Emergency welfare support for vulnerable households affected by the COVID-19 crisis will be increased by 30 billion won from this year to 215.6 billion won. 11 billion won has been allocated for the Korean-style sickness allowance pilot project.

With the abolition of the support obligation criteria for livelihood benefit recipients under the Basic Livelihood Security System, the related budget increased from 4.6079 trillion won this year to 5.2648 trillion won next year. Medical benefits were strengthened with coverage for MRI, ultrasound, etc., and the budget was set at 8.1232 trillion won, an increase of 442.8 billion won from this year.

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