As an audit found poor management of foreign substances in vaccines during the COVID-19 outbreak, a blame game is widening around Minister Jung Eun-kyeong, who was the overall head of quarantine at the time.
People Power Party leader Jang Dong-hyuk wrote on social media on the 26th, "There was a shocking announcement from the Board of Audit and Inspection that vaccines containing foreign substances such as mold and hair, or past their expiration dates, may have been administered," calling on President Lee Jae-myung to dismiss Minister Jung, who was then head of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency, and to apologize.
He said, "It has come to light that something like a vaccine terror happened, yet the president's X (formerly Twitter) is quiet," adding, "Where is the president who used to fire off a storm of X posts even in the dead of night?"
People Power Party lawmakers on the National Assembly Health and Welfare Committee also held a press conference at the National Assembly's communication center that day, urging Minister Jung to step down. Earlier, lawmaker Joo Jin-woo said, "Minister Jung must explain why this fact was concealed when serving as KDCA commissioner," adding, "The manufacturing numbers of the contaminated vaccines and the administering hospitals should be disclosed and recipients notified."
◇ 1,285 reports of foreign substances… closed with manufacturer probes without notifying the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety
According to the Board of Audit and Inspection's report "Diagnosis and analysis of the COVID-19 response" released on the 23rd, the KDCA received 1,285 reports of foreign substances in COVID-19 vaccines from medical institutions between March 2021 and October 2024. Of these, 835 cases (65%) involved fragments of vial rubber stoppers breaking off during administration. There were also 127 reports (9.9%) of foreign substances of concern, such as mold, hair, and silicon dioxide.
Under the government manual, when a foreign substance is found in a vaccine, the KDCA requests a quality review from the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and the ministry is to notify the results after component analysis and other reviews. If necessary, vaccination with, or the collection and testing of, the vaccine with the relevant lot number is carried out.
However, according to the Board of Audit and Inspection, the KDCA did not notify the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety of the reports and informed only the manufacturers. It closed the cases by accepting the manufacturers' internal investigation results without separate verification.
Cases of administering expired vaccines were also identified. The Board of Audit and Inspection said that between 2021 and 2023, 2,703 people received COVID-19 vaccines past their expiration dates.
In response, the KDCA immediately held a briefing and explained, "All vaccines for which foreign substances were reported were isolated and stored in their entirety, and there were no cases of actual administration." It also said, "No manufacturing or process-related quality issues were found in the 14.2 million doses with the same lot numbers."
The KDCA explained that during the pandemic it often requested direct investigations from manufacturers without going through the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, and that it did not suspend administration of the entire lot until the investigation results came out.
◇ 42.7% vaccination rate among those 65 and older… expert says "no evidence of serious harm, but impact is a concern"
Experts are concerned about the impact of this issue on vaccine confidence. They note that, with COVID-19 vaccination rates already low, distrust in the management system could further build.
According to KDCA vaccination data, as of the 24th, the COVID-19 vaccination rate for the 2025–2026 season among those 65 and older is 42.7%. That is about half the influenza vaccine rate (80.3%) in the same period. Since 2023, the government has shifted COVID-19 vaccination to an annual routine schedule like the flu, but participation has fallen short of expectations.
Chung Jae-hoon, professor in the Department of Preventive Medicine at Korea University College of Medicine, said, "There has been no surge in severe adverse reactions or confirmation of public health risk in the specific lot numbers for which foreign substance reports were received."
Chung said, "The 1,285 vaccines reported to contain foreign substances were all isolated and were not actually administered, and 14.2 million doses refer only to the nationwide cumulative number of vaccinations for the same lot numbers," adding, "Given that tens of thousands to several million doses are included in a single lot number, it is difficult to discard the entire lot based on a single foreign substance report."
He also said, "A significant share of reported cases involve rubber stopper fragments (about 65%) occurring during syringe insertion or silicon dioxide (about 8%), a container coating component, which is hard to view as defects unique to COVID-19 vaccines," adding, "Abnormal vaccines are being screened out through visual checks before administration."
He said, "There may have been blind spots in the administrative and management systems while implementing large-scale vaccinations in a short period during an unprecedented pandemic," but added, "Such limitations should not be grounds to deny the utility of the vaccines themselves or the need for immunization policy."