The government said the instability in the supply of medical syringes caused by the Middle East war has returned to a stable trend.
The Ministry of Health and Welfare on the 12th held a meeting to review stabilization of medical product supplies at Conference House Dalgaebi in Jung District, Seoul, with medical and pharmaceutical associations, the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, and the Ministery of Food and Drug Safety, and shared syringe inventory and production status.
According to the ministry, the current daily average output of the top 10 syringe manufacturers is up 16.6% from a year earlier. As of the 8th, 45.93 million syringes were in stock.
Based on this, the government said stable supply is currently possible. It added that by prioritizing additional production for online malls, online purchasing conditions have improved compared with before.
Earlier, after the war in the Middle East raised concerns about raw material supply disruptions, the government responded to the potential instability in supplies of essential medical products such as syringes, IV solution bags, medicine pouches, and dosing bottles.
The government, in cooperation with related ministries including the Ministry of Trade and Industry (MOTI), is prioritizing the supply of raw materials for medical product production and plans to maintain these measures in May–June.
The ministry is also continuing crackdowns on hoarding that exploits supply anxiety. The Ministery of Food and Drug Safety shared the results of the second crackdown on syringe hoarding at the meeting that day.
The ministry also released the results of on-site inspections conducted on some medical institutions on the 4th–7th. It asked institutions that purchased syringes at two to three times normal levels to refrain from excessive stockpiling, and some institutions voluntarily took measures such as refunds for purchased volumes.
To reduce damage to essential medical institutions such as hemodialysis clinics, the government is operating a "syringe supply chain hotline." By the 10th, a total of 420,000 syringes had been supplied on a priority basis to 660 medical institutions.
Second Vice Minister Lee Hyeong-hun of the ministry said, "With the joint response of the government and medical and pharmaceutical associations, instability in the supply of essential medical products is stabilizing," and added, "We will maintain the management system until the situation is completely over."