S. KOREA'S EFFORTS TO DEVELOP COVID-19 CURE

[Anchor Lead]

The South Korean government is stepping up its efforts to develop a cure for COVID-19. In order to develop the medication as soon as possible, the government will be selecting certain existing drugs with proven effectiveness and test it on animals first.

[Pkg]

It remains unclear how much time it will take to develop a cure for COVID-19. This is why local researchers are paying attention to existing medicines. They are working to find a COVID-19 treatment among 2,500 medications that are already proven safe. This is called re-creation research.

[Soundbite] CHUNG YEON-WOONG(MINISTRY OF SCIENCE AND ICT) : "Effective candidates are selected and their information is provided to the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety or the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Additional data is obtained through animal tests."

The selected medicines are then tested on animals. To prove their effectiveness in treating the virus, the drugs are injected into monkeys or other primates that have similar DNA to humans. Tests are also conducted on mice with genes engineered to come down with COVID-19. The test on primates will be conducted early next month, while the mouse test is scheduled to take place in June when gene engineering is completed.

[Soundbite] SEONG JE-KYUNG(KOREA MOUSE PHENOTYPING CENTER) : "Globally, there is a model mouse that gets infected with one type of coronavirus. But that's not enough. We are developing five types to provide the ideal model."

However, even if effective medicines are found, it will be difficult to administer all of them to patients right away. Additional procedures are required to confirm their safety and effectiveness. The research team believes the COVID-19 cure will be developed earlier once relevant medicines are discovered through the re-creation project.