Distribution of Pathogen Resources by the National Culture Collection for Pathogens in South Korea from 2015 to 2019.

Introduction: The National Culture Collection for Pathogens (NCCP) in the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency (KDCA) is in charge of the collection, quality control, and commercialization of pathogens and of information on pathogens that cause infectious diseases, and distributes them to be utilized for promoting public health and the health care industry. Since the NCCP Task Force was established in 2009 and the law for collection, management, and exploitation of pathogen resources became effective in 2017, NCCP has been responsible for the deposition, registration, and preservation of pathogen resources. Herein, we provide information on the recent status of pathogen resource distribution over the past 5 years and pathogen resources that are available for distribution presently. Results: Within the past 5 years, the numbers of pathogen resources distributed were 1659, 1823, 1457, 1156, and 1706 in the years 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively. In addition, more pathogens were distributed in February, March, September, and October than in other months. When categorized by the type of institution, profit organizations (3069) requested more pathogen resources than national and public research institutes (2291). Furthermore, based on the purpose of distribution, 440 cases were for vaccine or therapeutic development, 3041 for diagnostic technology development, 2487 for education, and 1134 for quality control. Conclusion: Based on these findings, we publicized the information on the distribution of pathogen resources to encourage their widespread use in infectious disease research and public health.