The world is in preparations to use oral COVID-19 treatments to end the pandemic. Following the UK, Demark became the second country to authorize the use of MSD’s (US Merck’s) ‘molnupiravir,’ with the EU and the US also reviewing approval of the said drug. Pfizer’s oral treatment ‘Paxlovid’ is also under regulatory review.

Korea has also joined in the preparations and started the review process for ‘molnupiravir,’ and signed an advance purchase agreement with MSD and Pfizer for 312,000 courses of their treatments (242,000 courses from MSD and 70,000 courses from Pfizer). The authorities also significantly increased the budget for such purchases. Although 36.2 billion won was first allocated f