The South Korean government has earmarked nearly 200 billion won of next year's budget towards securing COVID-19 vaccines.

The Finance Ministry said on Friday that 170-point-seven billion won will be set aside to support research and development of treatments and vaccines for the coronavirus.

Of that, 31-point-nine billion won will be spent on discovering candidate materials for a potential vaccine and another seven-point-four billion won on non-human clinical trials.

A total of 131-point-four billion won will be set aside for human clinical trials of potential vaccines next year.

Additionally, the government will spend another 200 billion won to enhance basic research on infectious diseases, such as setting up infrastructure, securing equipment for experiments, and establishing a new virus research institute.

The total research and development budget, including funds for infectious diseases, has been increased by 12-point-three percent from this year to 27-point-two trillion won.