![Syringes identical to those seized are displayed during a briefing on the first special crackdown on syringe hoarding at the Seoul Regional Office of the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety in Yangcheon-gu, Seoul. [Photo=Yonhap]](https://image.ajunews.com/content/image/2026/05/07/20260507085915880450.jpg)
The Ministry of Health and Welfare announced the steps in a report titled “Medical product supply and price trends and measures in response to the Middle East war,” presented at a special interministerial task force on cost-of-living management.
The government said it will make the supply chain more transparent. It has been conducting daily monitoring in cooperation with six medical associations, and will add a weekly nationwide survey of medical institutions’ inventories to track stock levels, including comparisons with the same period a year earlier. It also conducted on-site inspections from May 4 to May 7 at 24 medical institutions suspected of buying excessive quantities of syringes.
For items at risk of short-term shortages — including packaging for IV solutions, syringes, medicine packaging and dosing bottles — the government will ensure manufacturers receive raw materials first. The measures will continue through May, and the government said it plans ongoing management after June as well.
Jung Kyung-sil, director general for health care policy at the ministry, said the government will publish daily supply-and-demand updates, including syringe production, shipments and inventories, “to ease public anxiety and encourage voluntary self-correction in distribution.”
To help ensure stable supplies for high-demand facilities such as dialysis clinics, the government has operated a “syringe supply chain hotline” since April 16. Since it began, 970,000 syringes have been supplied to online malls, and 210,000 have been delivered to medical institutions.
The ministry also said patients who need around-the-clock management, including those with rare diseases, will be able to buy medical products through telemedicine platforms. Through telemedicine intermediaries, buyers will be identified as having rare or intractable diseases and allowed to place orders by distinguishing between covered and noncovered items.
Jung said the ministry determined that shortages on online malls were fueling anxiety among patients, adding that syringes have been delivered using telemedicine platforms since May 4.
Separately, the disposal interval for general medical waste at clinics and public health centers will be temporarily doubled to 30 days from the current 15 days. The measure will remain in place until next month’s 30th. The ministry said hospitals generate large volumes of waste and fill containers and plastic liners within 15 days, while clinics often dispose of waste before containers are full because volumes are smaller.
Jung said the government is not moving to institutionalize the longer disposal interval for clinics. She said hospitals structurally use large amounts of plastic, adding that formalizing the change “could be considered as one option” to reduce reliance on plastic products, but that further talks with the Ministry of Climate, Energy and Environment are needed and it is difficult to say whether it could be adopted permanently.
The government also adjusted National Health Insurance reimbursement rates for treatment materials to reflect the strong-dollar environment. Based on exchange rates over the past three years, it changed the exchange-rate reference grade for treatment materials from the 1,100-won range to the 1,300-won range and raised it by 6%. As a result, the average reimbursement for 27,000 separately calculated treatment materials rose 2%, with an expected support effect of 6.7 billion won per month.
In addition, the government will provide emergency management stabilization funds to small and midsize companies that manufacture plastic-based medical products.
* This article has been translated by AI.
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