Topic: 2025 – Vaccine Access and Distribution
Country: Republic of Korea
Delegate Name: Victoria Kim
Victoria Kim
Republic of Korea
Committee: World Health Organization (WHO)
School: City High Middle School
Topic B: Vaccine Access and Distribution
On July 5, 2021, it was reported that the Republic of Korea’s vaccination rate had slowed down since June 20 due to vaccine shortages. The COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy rate was 21.9%, with those aged under 30 at 33.4% and those aged 65 or over at 8.7%. Comprising a shocking 2% of the vaccine market in the world, the market scale of vaccines in Korea was 710 billion KRW in 2011, with an annual growth rate of 11% for the past 6 years. In 2023, the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) confirmed that 93.3% of one-year-olds, 93.6% two-year-olds, 88.7% for three-year-olds, and 89.4% for six-year-olds received full vaccination coverage. The Republic of Korea believes that fellow member states should aim towards the improvement of vaccine access with the implementation of better distribution of vaccines.
The Republic of Korea believes that vaccine access and distribution should be improved through raised awareness and government funding for full vaccination coverage, further encouraging vaccination. With objectives aligned with the WHO guidelines, the Korean government has set three target objectives: reducing disease severity and mortality, mitigating virus spread, and preventing the collapse of important societal functions. In August 2021, President Moon Jae-in announced that South Korea would launch new initiatives to position the country as a global vaccine hub, including for COVID-19 vaccines. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that the Republic of Korea has achieved maturity level four (ML4), the highest level of WHO’s classification of regulatory authorities for medical products. South Korea’s expertise in vaccine production and distribution puts it in a prime position to increase the number of vaccination sites and improve vaccine quality.
This committee must tackle the challenges of vaccine access and distribution, such as supply unpredictability, difficulties in estimating demand, and issues with the public health infrastructure needed to manage distribution. To this end, the Republic of Korea believes that resolutions should emphasize and encourage three main points: improving vaccine availability and accessibility to all by increasing the number of vaccination sites, promoting government oversight on the supply chain management, and generalizing online reservation to encourage efficiency. According to an opinion poll co-hosted by the Korea Broadcasting System (KBS) and the Seoul National University Graduate School of Public Health (SNU GSPH), due to the use of online reservations, the percentage of people who wanted a vaccination increased by 16.3% points from May to June, from 59.2% in May to 75.5% in June.
