As a national research institute specializing in infectious diseases, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases was established through the expansion and restructuring of the Infectious Disease Research Center, a subsidiary of the Korea National Institute of Health, with a goal of preparing measures and scientific grounds for the prevention of and swift response to infectious diseases.
Basis for establishment
Article 18 of the Enforcement Rules of the Organization of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency and Its Subsidiaries (National Institute of Infectious Diseases)
The National Institute of Infectious Diseases was established under the management of the Korea National Institute of Health in order to divide the office works for the planning of research and development for infectious diseases and development of therapies and vaccines.
Background
In addition to the periodic and continuous occurrence of public health crisis situations caused by emerging and variant infectious diseases such as COVID-19, the emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria due to environmental changes and increase of chronic infectious diseases as a result of aging have led to a gradual rise in the frequency and scale of incidence of infectious diseases requiring national-level response. Moreover, to improve investment efficiency for R&D in the field of infectious diseases, where the scale of investment has been expanded further due to COVID-19, and to secure the timeliness of R&D outcomes, government-wide linkage and cooperation are more important than ever. In line with the increased necessity of a study on national infectious disease response, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases was established in September 2020 concurrently with the opening of the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency.
Duties of NIID
As a control tower of national infectious disease R&D, NIID is performing various duties to create the research environment and secure a foundation in addition to establishing the scientific grounds for infectious disease preparation and response and developing technologies to overcome the diseases.
NIID plans infectious disease-related policy and investment directions, discovers and plans new businesses, and manages full-cycle R&D outcomes.
To secure and commercialize key technologies for the development of infectious disease diagnosis methods, vaccines, and therapies, NIID conducts and supports related researches by not only securing pathogen resources and conducting studies to discover candidates but also establishing a full-cycle R&D system from the development of effectiveness assessment technologies for nonclinical trials to clinical trials.
NIID produces outcomes that are substantially helpful for infectious disease crisis response by strengthening the use of such outcomes through linkage to those from clinical trials while developing technologies based on public - private partnership in response to the demand in clinical and disease control sites.
NIID strives to strengthen infectious disease response competency through joint studies and exchange of research resources and information with leading research institutes and organizations in Korea and abroad by strengthening the cooperative system.
History