North Korea fights off malaria as disease heads South
Pastor Dale Morgan
North Korea fights off malaria as disease heads South*
By Jon Herskovitz
Reuters
Tuesday, May 27, 2008; 8:49 AM
SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea has been fighting off malaria infections
at home but mosquitoes carrying the disease are crossing the heavily
armed border and infecting hundreds each year in the South, a provincial
governor said on Tuesday.
Malaria was eradicated on the Korean peninsula about 30 years ago but
re-emerged in the destitute North in the 1990s due to poor sanitation.
Kim Moon-soo, governor of Gyeonggi province which surrounds Seoul and
shares a border with North Korea, visited the communist state this month
to discuss food aid and ways to keep malaria in check.
"Based on the statistics that we have access to, it seems that the
malaria cases (in North Korea) have been significant," Kim said at a
news briefing with foreign reporters.
Kim said there were about 60,000 civilian infections in North Korea in
2003 while in 2007 the number was reduced to an estimated 7,430.
In his province, 677 people were infected last year with malaria by
mosquitoes that had crossed the no-man's land Demilitarized Zone buffer
dividing the two countries technically still at war.
The infection rate in the province, though, has fallen since 2001 when
several thousand people were infected, according to South Korean
government statistics.
"The North has replied that it has no problem with malaria. They are
reluctant to have this issue publicized. We also suffer from this issue
and we have proposed to them to catch mosquitoes together," Kim said.
South Korea has worked with the World Health Organization since 2001,
when an estimated 300,000 civilians were infected in the North, to
eradicate malaria on the peninsula.
Seoul said earlier this month it would provide aid valued at $1.8
million to combat malaria in the North.
"Malaria in North Korea breaks out mostly around the border area," said
an official with the South's Korea Centers for Disease Control and
Prevention.
Kim, whose province conducts a joint farming project in the North, said
he saw signs of a severe food shortage in the North.
"In North Korea, people are starving. They might not be starving to
death but they are suffering due to the lack of proper nutrition and
other difficulties."
Last month, the U.N. World Food Program said North Korea faced a looming
food and humanitarian crisis after a poor harvest that has caused food
prices to skyrocket and supplies to dwindle.
(Additional reporting by Park Ju-min; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)