The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced on the 3rd that it has newly designated five national essential medicines. These include methylprednisolone injectables, which relieve inflammation in emergency situations requiring immune suppression, fluorescein eye drops used for ophthalmic examinations, and oral cyclosporine used for rejection reactions in organ and bone marrow transplants.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety recently held a meeting of the National Essential Medicines Stable Supply Council to make this decision. The council includes ten central administrative agencies, including the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the Office for Government Policy Coordination, the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency. It designates medicines essential for health but unstable in supply as national essential medicines and establishes plans for stable supply.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety noted, 'We will support the systematic and administrative measures to ensure that national essential medicines are stably supplied to the field.'