While the purchase price of an ingestible COVID-19 treatment is known to exceed 900,000 won, the government announced today (13th) that if this treatment is introduced, the state will pay the full cost.
Sohn Young-rae, head of the social strategy division of the Central Accident Remediation Headquarters, answered at a back briefing today, "The public is operating in a system that does not have self-pay at present."
Director Sohn explained, "In the case of Korea, the entire (COVID-19) treatment process is borne by the state, so the public is not burdened with costs.
Corona 19 is designated as a first-class infectious disease, and the entire cost of treatment is borne by the government in accordance with the Infectious Disease Prevention Act.
The government is also subsidizing the cost of 'remdesivir', which is currently used as a treatment for COVID-19 in Korea.
As for the budget for purchasing oral drugs, 16.8 billion won was allocated as an additional supplementary budget this year, and 19.4 billion won is set up in the government budget for next year.
The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) previously said that it had reflected the cost of purchasing drugs for 18,000 people in this year’s supplementary budget and 20 million people in next year’s budget.
The government is negotiating purchases with each pharmaceutical company while looking at the current development of oral therapeutics.
Oral treatments that are in phase 3 clinical trials overseas are MSD's molnupiravir, Roche's AT-527,and Pfizer's PF-07321332.