The government is looking to exclude countries reporting cases of the COVID-19 lambda variant from a quarantine exemption list.

Senior Health Ministry official Park Hyang said on Wednesday that the matter is currently under review by the Korea Disease Control and Prevention Agency(KDCA).

Currently, vaccinated South Koreans traveling from a foreign country are exempt from the 14-day self-quarantine upon entry, so long as they test negative and don't report any symptoms.

Travelers who were vaccinated overseas entering for business, academia, public duty or humanitarian reasons have also been granted exemptions since last month.

The lambda variant, which was first detected in Peru last October, has recently emerged as a dominant strain across South America. While it has been reported in 30 countries so far, there have been little information on the level of  its transmissability or its resistance to existing vaccines.