A bottle of anesthesia drug propofol. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, July 29 (Korea Bizwire) — About one-third of South Koreans were prescribed drugs for medical use last year, data showed Thursday.
The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety reported that 18.8 million people were prescribed medication by 104,000 doctors last year.
Prescriptions for medication dropped slightly between 2019 (18.5 million) and 2020 (17.5 million) before starting to rise again last year. Based on the total population (51.6 million) in the country, 1 in every 2.7 people was prescribed medication last year.
Among them, 8.1 million were men and 10.7 million were women.
Sorted by age, 21.2 percent were in their 50s, followed by 40s (20 percent), 60s (19.1 percent) and 70s or older (16 percent).
Those in their 40s or older accounted for 76.8 percent of all drug prescriptions, most likely due to the use of painkillers to treat cancer and other diseases, as well as health checks that require anesthetic drugs.
Last year, 538 types of drugs were approved for medical use. At 76 the most common were based on the opioid fentanyl, which is commonly prescribed to treat pain.
M. H. Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
