Seoul: South Korea's disease control agency on Sunday said it has newly designated 66 rare diseases subject to government support this year, officials said. This brings to 1,314 the total number of rare diseases under state supervision, up from 1,248 last year. According to Yonhap News Agency, once designated, the medical fees for patients with a rare disease are reduced to about 10 percent of total expenses under the National Health Insurance Service policy, which reduces costs for diseases that require expensive or long-term treatment. Rare diseases refer to diseases with less than 20,000 patients in the country, or those with an unknown amount of patients due to difficulty in diagnosis. The government designates and proclaims newly added rare diseases up for government support each year under the Rare Disease Management Act. In 2022, the total number of newly added rare disease patients was tallied at 54,952.