S. Korea to shorten COVID-19 vaccine licensing process, treatments

South Korea’s medical regulator said Sunday it will shorten the approval process of COVID-19 vaccines and treatments, as the country has signed contracts to introduce coronavirus vaccines amid the winter wave of the pandemic.

It usually takes around 180 days for a vaccine to be approved under a normal licensing process, but the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety said it aims to shorten the licensing process to as low as 40 days due to the urgency of the whole disease. -discharged.

In South Korea, vaccines require additional approval before they can be released and sold.

Such a licensing process will take two to three months, but the ministry said it plans to shorten the process for its sale by as low as 20 days.

Last week, the government said South Korea has signed contracts with Janssen and Pfizer at Johnson & Johnson to purchase COVID-19 vaccines for a total of 16 million people.

Earlier, the government said it had signed contracts to immunize 44 million people.

South Korea sent 970 more COVID-19 cases on Sunday, raising the total number of cases to 56,872, according to the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. (Yonhap)