Korea to develop COVID-19 treatment this year, vaccine next year

Jeong Eun-kyeong, the first head of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA), speaks during her inaugural ceremony at Osong health and medical administrative town in Sejong, Monday. Yonhap

By Bahk Eun-ji

The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) announced Monday the government's goal of securing a domestically developed treatment for COVID-19 this year and a vaccine next year.

During an opening ceremony following the reorganization of the former Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (KCDC) into the KDCA, an independent agency with more authority to respond to infectious disease more effectively, its chief Jeong Eun-kyeong said, “We will push ahead with overcoming COVID-19 as a top priority in response to the public's trust and expectations.”

In her inaugural speech, Jeong told agency personnel, “We are still in the middle of a stormy sea. As the captain and a sailor of this new ship called the KDCA, I will be your companion to complete this voyage with all of you.”

The government had already announced plans for the mass-production of antibody treatments for coronavirus by September. Kwon Jun-wook, deputy director of the KCDC said, “The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety is reviewing Phase 2 and Phase 3 clinical trials, and plans to approve mass-production of antibody treatments for commercial use in September,” during a regular briefing Sept. 9.

In line with this, the government is supporting companies with the goal of vaccine development sometime next year. Genexine, the only domestic company, started Phase 1 and 2 clinical trials in June, SK Bioscience and GeneOne Life Science have also been included on the administration's list for clinical trial support.

Despite such efforts, a second round of antibody tests nationwide country showed, Monday, that only one out of 1,440 people tested positive for coronavirus antibodies here. The result indicates that herd immunity, which refers to a scenario where enough people in a community develop immunity to an infection so that it stops spreading, is virtually impossible in Korea, the KDCA said in a statement.

In response to the serology test results, the KDCA said containment efforts are the only way to slow the spread of the virus until a vaccine is developed.

The KDCA reported 109 new COVID-19 infections for Sunday, including 98 local ones, raising the total caseload to 22,285. Five more deaths were reported, raising the death toll to 363 amid a fatality rate of 1.63 percent.

Of the newly identified local infections, 41 were reported in Seoul and 30 in Gyeonggi Province that surrounds the capital area. Incheon, west of Seoul, reported 10 more cases.

After the country kept local new virus cases under 200 for a month, the government decided Sunday to ease its stricter social distancing rules in the capital area to take into account the economic damage facing the self-employed.

However, the Seoul Metropolitan Government announced a plan to extend a ban on rallies of 10 or more people until next month despite the eased social distancing guidelines that went into effect Monday as concerns about sporadic infection clusters still remain.

Under the plan, all rallies of 10 or more participants will be banned across the capital until midnight Oct. 11. The restriction was initially scheduled to be lifted earlier in the day, in line with the government's decision to ease the social distancing guidelines from Level 2.5 to 2.