While authorities would like to inoculate the country's entire population of 52 million, uncertainty around the vaccine's safety, efficacy and development was limiting the ROK's investment, Chung said.
Chung said the government will negotiate with the relevant international organisations and vaccine makers to secure the early supply of the COVID-19 vaccines and would buy more as the development proceeds.
In August, the ROK said it planned to join the COVAX facility, a global COVID-19 vaccine allocation plan co-led by the World Health Organization (WHO) that aims to help buy and fairly distribute the shots.
The ROK will purchase 20 million doses of vaccines from the COVAX scheme, available for 10 million people, and 40 million doses from private drug makers, the health authorities said in a statement.
The ROK’s SK Bioscience in July agreed to manufacture AstraZeneca’s experimental vaccine, that has shown promise against the coronavirus, to help the British company build global supplies.
Novavax Inc last month separately said SK Bioscience, a unit of SK Chemicals, would manufacture a component of the US drug developer's experimental coronavirus vaccine in a bid to boost its supply.
The Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency reported 106 new coronavirus cases as of Monday (September 14) midnight, which brought the total number of infections to 22,391, and the total COVID-19 death tally to 367.
