North Korean Economy Watch

Korea times
Lee Jin-woo
3/6/2007

The Ministry of Unification said Tuesday it has provided some 400 million won ($400,000) to help North Korea stem the spread of scarlet fever, an infectious disease, a ministry official said.

Yang Chang-seok, spokesman for the ministry, said the money has been provided to an association of some 51 local private relief organizations.

As the money was financed by the inter-Korean cooperation fund under a matching fund system, the association promised to provide some 200 million won for the aid program.

Yang said the decision was made at a government meeting on Feb. 12.

The spokesman, however, said the decision was not in opposition to Unification Minister Lee Jae-joung’s earlier remarks not to provide any government-level assistance over the infectious disease in the impoverished North.

During a press briefing in January, the minister stated that the government would not provide medical aid to the North as scarlet fever is not a fatal infectious disease.

“Given the nature of the disease, we believe that North Korea itself will be able to solve the problem,” Lee told reporters on Jan. 11.

The spokesman said Minister Lee was referring to government-level aid through the Korean National Red Cross (KNRC), not financial assistance from private relief organizations.

South Korean humanitarian aid groups have shipped various types of medicine including penicillin and other antibiotics to Pyongyang since last December. Scarlet fever broke out in northern Ryanggang province last October.

Scarlet fever is intrinsically not a serious communicable disease, but if not treated properly it can become serious like cholera or typhoid. The impoverished North lacks medicine.

South Korea suspended its government-level humanitarian aid to North Korea after the North’s missile tests last July. A possible resumption of the aid was blocked due to the North’s nuclear bomb test in October.

During ministerial talks in Pyongyang last week, the two Koreas agreed to hold a series of meetings to restart the aid project. 

KCNA
2/28/2007

Scientists in the Zoological Institute of the Branch Academy of Biology under the DPRK State Academy of Sciences have proved successful in research into the artificial breeding of terrapins.

The terrapin is efficacious for weaklings and for the treatment of circulatory troubles. The new method shortens the growth period of terrapins to one fourth.

At the end of several-year experiments, they found out raw materials of assorted feed needed for the rapid growth of terrapins and their composition rate, and an effective method for reducing incubation duration by more than ten days compared with the natural conditions.

The productivity of the male terrapins is higher than that of the females. They, basing themselves on this, developed a technique by which they can control the rate of female and male freely.

The scientists also redesigned structures of the terrapin breeding farm to suit the habitation of the terrapins so as to make them grow healthily.

Korea Times
Ting-I Tsai
2/21/2007

North Korean drug companies hope that updated versions of traditional medicines promising – among other things – to treat impotence and kidney dysfunction can help cure what ails the isolated Stalinist country’s stagnant economy.

In the hope of earning badly needed hard currency by exploiting the nation’s ancient herbal-medicine traditions, North Korea’s pharmaceutical companies are producing “various traditional health products through [modern] technologies”. The effectiveness of these medicines, however, has not been scientifically proved.

The medication that has drawn the most attention is probably Neoviagra-YR, developed by the Korea Oriental Instant Medicinal Center, which promises to improve a person’s sexual capabilities, ease bone pain, and cure kidney dysfunction and arteriosclerosis.

“I got my cute baby after I took two boxes of YR. This is definitely good medication,” its advertisement quoted Pyongyang resident Kim Ming-ze, 35, as saying.

Another patient who supposedly benefited from the medication was Kim Chong-ze, 45, who said: “I hadn’t had sex for three months. My sexual function normalized after I took four boxes of YR. I can promise that this is the magic medication of the 21st century.” However, the telephone number of the Pyongyang-based company given on the advertisement was wrong.

In Beijing’s Korean neighborhood, a booth at a market sells a box of Neoviagra for US$20.

Boothkeeper Pak Mun-bin emphasized that Neoviagra is far more effective than Pfizer’s Viagra, but failed to explain how it can be used to treat both bone pain and erectile dysfunction.

He added that that the booth sold as many as 700 boxes per month, with South Koreans being major customers.

“North Korea may be a small country. but its herbal medicines are nonetheless better than Chinese ones. At least there are no fake medicines,” Pak said.

If Neoviagra is not quite exotic enough for some customers, North Korea’s Pugang Pharmaceutic Co offers another choice, the “Queen’s Appeal”, which is described as “a volcano of energies and the key to happiness”.

Its official website described it as a herbal dietary elixir formulated from the extracts of wild Epimedium koreanum, which “was used by the kings, the queens and the court ladies in ancient Korea. Makes you wild in sexual life and brings you great energy. Adverse effects: none. Contra-indications: none.”

The North Koreans are also flogging medications that they claim are capable of preserving youth.

Among the “health foods” being introduced, the most widely promoted is “Royal Blood-Fresh”. According to the package, it is a traditional health food “formulated via a high tech from fermented soybeans of the olden royal palace”. The manufacturer, Pugang Pharmaceutic Co, claims it will “make you younger and cleverer. Students will result better in exams.” It recommends taking one to two tablets for prevention, three tablets three times daily for chronic cases, and five to nine tablets three to eight times daily for acute cases. A 160-tablet bottle sells for US$39 in Beijing.

For those worried about bird flu , the North Koreans claim to have a better cure than Tamiflu, the Kumdang-2 Injection, which is “extracted from Kaesong Koryo ginseng cultivated by specific micro-elementary fertilizers involving some ultra-highly purified medicinal rare-earth elements”. An English research team, its introduction claims, concluded that the medication could “prevent and cure the virus-originated epidemic diseases including Bird’s Flu”.

Its official website described its service as a “worldwide daily supply”, with medication distributed to its representative offices in 13 countries around the world, including Cuba, Syria, Japan, the United Kingdom and Zimbabwe. A Pugang Han Yong Gon sales representative said any international purchase is deliverable by courier and customers can receive their medication within days.

The Pugang Pharmaceutic Co, founded in 1983, has developed numerous medications by incorporating Korea’s traditional herbs in the production of “high-technology” products, including Aphorodisia 2, a cure for vaginal diseases. The company says it operates nine state-of-the-art pharmaceutical factories in accordance with the industry’s GMP (good manufacturing practices) standard and has averaged an annual turnover of $25 million. All of the medications are legally approved by the local medical authority.

According to Western experts familiar with the nation’s medical services, most of the medications are widely distributed to local pharmacies.

One expert, speaking on condition of anonymity, said: “North Koreans, Chinese, South Koreans, Japanese, etc, are always looking for ‘natural’ ways to reverse aging, cure [or prevent] all diseases with one potion, and to strengthen their sexual potency. And if they can make money while doing it, so much the better,” the expert said. Even if doubts do exist about the efficacy of the so-called “miracle medicines”, the expert noted: “It’s just that they want to believe in them.”

Taiwanese pharmacists and experts in traditional Chinese medicine question the legitimacy of the North Korean medicines.

Gau Churn-shiouh, a professor of the National Taiwan University’s school of pharmacy, noted that these medications “sound more like old-fashioned Chinese medications that could cure everything” that have no sound scientific basis.

Furthermore, experts in Chinese traditional medicine pointed out that all kinds of medications are poisonous, and taking them without diagnosis could lead to illness.

Hung Chin-lieh, also a professor at the National Taiwan University, said that the efficacy of ginseng is relatively limited compared with other herbs, and is not applicable to every single patient.

“The efficacies claimed by the advertisements look more like exaggerations. The main problem is that the ingredients of these medications are so vague. Without adopting the measure of ‘evidence-based medicine’, the North Koreans really should not have promoted the efficacies,” Hung said.

BBC
2/20/2007

North Korea has been hit by a measles epidemic that has killed four people and infected some 3,000, the Red Cross has said.

Measles has been found in 30 counties since the outbreak began in November, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said.

Pyongyang has requested five million doses of vaccine to fight the epidemic.

Correspondents say medicine is in short supply and years of malnutrition has weakened resistance to disease.

In a statement, the IFRC said North Korea had confirmed two children and two adults had died from measles and its complications such as pneumonia.

More than 1,000 people are still receiving treatment for the disease.

The authorities in Pyongyang only confirmed the measles outbreak last week because the disease was believed to have been eradicated from the country in 1992, the federation statement added.

The Red Cross, the World Health Organization and other international bodies are now helping to tackle the outbreak.

There have been recent reports of outbreaks of scarlet fever and typhoid in the reclusive Communist state, where most people are faced with daily food shortages and a dilapidated health service.

4 Dies From Measles Epidemic in North Korea
Korea Times
2/20/2007

A measles epidemic has claimed at least four lives and infected about 3,000 people in North Korea, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies said Monday.

The federation said in a statement that measles has been found in 30 North Korean counties since the outbreak started in November last year.

It added that four deaths were reported on Jan. 4 when two children and two adults died from measles and its complications such as pneumonia. Around 3,000 North Koreans were confirmed to have infected with the disease.

Pyongyang has asked international organizations for massive doses of vaccine to prevent further spread of the epidemic.

The North has requested 5 million doses of measles vaccine to immunize its citizens aged from seven to 45.

The requested doses cost $1.5 million, and North Korea will pay the costs for transportation, distribution and staff training.

UNICEF is expected to lead the immunization campaign and keep the related organizations informed of developments.

North Korea’s Ministry of Public Health confirmed the measles epidemic last Thursday, and the information was immediately discussed in a joint meeting the following day by the North Korean Red Cross, the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNICEF.

The federation said the disease was initially believed to be rubella. The first identification of measles came on Nov. 6 in the northern region of the country.

It added that the communist country has failed to bring the epidemic under control and the disease spread throughout the country.

The WHO supplied Pyongyang with testing kits in January, but there were constraints because North Korea was thought to have eradicated the disease in 1992.

The country’s health care workers were thus not familiar with the disease, the federation pointed out.

Korea Times
2/9/2007

A Korean-American aid group based in the United States said Thursday it was sending its 17th shipment of medical relief goods worth $4.8 million to North Korea, according to the Yonhap News Agency.

The Institute for Strategy and Reconciliation (ISR), a think tank also active in international assistance, said the shipment this month will go to helping more than 20,000 North Korean children and the handicapped by providing antibiotics, wheelchairs and crutches.

Yonhap reported the aid will also include stethoscopes and various surgical and medical equipment.

“The latest assistance will leave from San Francisco and will reach North Korea’s Nampo Port by the end of March,” the group said in a press release.

The group will also provide individually tailored artificial limbs while the staff is in the North, the first American relief group to do so.

ISR began its North Korea program in 1998 with the approval of the U.S. Treasury. As of this month, the group has provided medical assistance valued at approximately $27.4 million.

The group is also recruiting volunteers through the end of this month to help post-surgery rehabilitation programs for children and the handicapped in North Korea.

Korea Times
Andrei Lankov
1/22/2007

Old-style Communism had no doubt about the birthrate. Its approach to fertility was simple and straightforward: the higher, the better. There could be no such a thing as too many soldiers or too many workers.

Thus, Communist states went to great lengths to stimulate the birth rate. Of course, material incentives of all kinds were used widely: an additional tax levied on childless people, heavily subsidized kindergartens and creches, long maternity leaves.

Large families enjoyed special access to goods and services, a significant privilege in an economy based on distribution, and plagued by scarcity.

The material incentives were augmented by intense propaganda.

In the USSR from 1944, a mother who raised more than seven children was decorated with a special order and provided with many privileges. The caveat was that it was not enough to just give birth seven times: the decoration could only take place when the youngest of the seven children reached the age of one year.

The same approach was adopted by North Korea in the early stages of its history. Any other policy would be strange: the country suffered huge population losses in 1945-1953, partially due to the war and partially due to the large-scale migration to the South.

The population was believed to be 9.3 million in 1946, but by 1953 it had declined to 8.3 million.

In 1966 the fertility rate in North Korea reached the very high level of 6.5 children per woman. This was higher than the fertility rate in the South where it had already begun to decline, not least due to a government- sponsored campaign.

But then something happened. Around 1970, fertility rates nose-dived in the North, supplying one of the most dramatic reductions in the world’s demographic history. They dropped to 4.5 in 1974 and then to 3.5 in 1976. The crude birth rate, measured in the number of live births per 1000, declined from 35 in 1970 to 18 in 1976, thus halving in merely seven years.

All these figures are quite reliable since demographic statistics are probably the only kind of North Korean statistics decently known to the outside world. We know this through a blunder by the North Korean authorities who, in the early 1990s, invited a group of foreign experts on demographics to the country and provided them with full access to the relevant data. This was done to get their advice on the forthcoming population census.

To make sure that the foreigners would not create any harm, the data was slightly doctored, but the North Korean officials obviously did not realize that demographic data is, by its very nature, remarkably consistent, so an expert can easily reconstruct missing sections. When they understood their mistakes, the authorities tried to prevent the data from being published, but it was too late.

This statistics which became available in the 1990s confirmed what was long suspected: in the early 1970s, North Korea waged a highly intensive and highly successful family planning campaign. The information about this campaign has filtered out through defectors, but few if any experts understood how dramatic and decisive it actually was.

In the early 1970s, abortions were legalized and education about contraceptive procedures became obligatory in all kinds of health centers. Despite increasing difficulties with all kinds of goods, the contraceptive devices were widely manufactured and freely distributed.

The three-child family was proclaimed an ideal, and from 1978 the desirable number of children was further cut to two.

Around the same time, the marriage age was increased dramatically. The legal marriage age remained the same, but the public North Korean laws are not necessarily written to be followed.

The actual life of the country is determined by instructions, of which the instructions by the Great Leader himself are by far most important. And the Great Leader said in 1971, and said in no uncertain terms, that the youth should be sacrificed for the sake of revolution, not for raising families. In his wisdom he said that a good time to marry would be when a woman reached 28 and a man reached 30. Needless to say, a wish of the Great Leader became instantly the law of the land.

But it was never stated that all these measures were aimed at curbing birth rates. This was the major peculiarity of the entire campaign: in spite of its huge scale, it remained essentially secret. Perhaps, the North was unique in being the world’s only state which was in position to wage an invisible campaign of this kind.

The existence of very efficient and non-transparent channels of influence created such a unique opportunity: orders could be transmitted through party bureaucracy to every family without attracting anybody’s attention, while incentives could be distributed and punishment could be inflicted without much noise.

It is not clear what made Pyongyang undertake such a dramatic reversal of its earlier policies. From the officially published documents of the 1970s it seems that Kim Il-sung began to worry whether grain production was growing fast enough. Perhaps, it was decided to curb population growth because the government was not sure whether it would be able to feed more mouths in the future.

Perhaps, the impact of the intense South Korean family planning campaign was also felt in the North. Unlike lesser beings, North Koreans leaders have always been careful readers of the South Korean press, and they often imitated their adversaries in everything from dress fashions to ideological trends.

Finally, the changing mood of the developing world may have played a role. The early 1970s was the period when developing countries came to see population growth as a problem rather than an opportunity.

At any rate, the program was remarkably successful. Nothing like it could happen these days, when Pyongyang is gradually loosing its ability to monitor and direct all activities of its subjects. The days of Stalinism with North Korean characteristics are long gone.

Donga (Hat Tip DPRK Studies)
1/22/2007

It is expected that the government’s aid to North Korea will be affected as the international community has decided to investigate the general situation of aid projects using U.N. funding including the United Nations Development Program (UNDP). So far, the government and private groups supporting North Korea have often used international organizations as a means to give humanitarian aid to the North, as such aid through the World Health Organization (WHO), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), World Food Programme (WFP) and others are less influenced by the inter-Korean relations.

Last year, the government and private organizations didn’t provide previously planned corn aid to the North in the aftermath of North Korea’s missile and nuclear tests. However, they spent 5.912 billion won in malaria preventive measures and infant and child support.

In 2005, they sent products worth 25.773 billion won in food aid and quarantine measures against malaria. Besides, they provided goods worth 2.254 billion won in aid and preventive measures against malaria with the North in 2004, and offered North Korea goods worth 20.303 billion won in corn, malaria preventive measures, and vaccine and immunizing agents in 2003.

The total sum Korea spent on the North in humanitarian assistance over the last 10 years (from 1995 to 2004) amounts to $119.43 million, 7.99 percent of the total U.N. financial aid of $1.49 billion to North Korea. During the period, apart from world organizations, the government gave the North $1.16 billion in financial support.

A government official said, “The government’s support for North Korea through international groups is its obligation as a responsible member of the international community,” and added, “Assistance for North Korea through world organizations is for humanitarian purposes, and as far as I know, there is no possibility for misappropriating funds since the aid is being carried out based on a principle of providing 100 percent goods.”

However, contrary to the above government’s official statement, the government seems rather perplexed at the suspicion that its aid through world organizations was diverted to be used for the North’s nuclear development program. The government has used world organizations as an indirect route for its aid toward North Korea because it was worried about getting embroiled in accusations that it is being too lenient on North Korea.

Unification Minister Lee Jae-Jeong also said in his inaugural speech that even humanitarian aid should be divided into emergency aid, assistance in loan form and aid for development, and that emergency aid should continue under any circumstances in order to emphasize the continuation of government’s support for North Korea through world organizations.

Minister Lee has so far expressed regret to the WFP over the suspension of food aid to the North and emergency relief aid for North Korea’s catastrophic flood damage. Another government official stated, The “UNDP seems to have nothing to do with humanitarian aid since it is aid for the development of North Korea. Still, it will still affect the government’s humanitarian assistance program for the North in the future.”

Meanwhile, it was revealed that the government is investing in the Tumen River Area Development Programme (TRADP) the government has been participating in since 1995 under the auspices of the UNDP. An official at the Ministry of Finance and Economy noted, “This year, the government will pay $181,000 for the operating expenses of the TRADP office.”

Asia Times
Robert Neff
1/18/2007

In a country infamous for famines, it is no wonder that cattle in North Korea are prized so highly and considered “national property”. According to government sources, North Korea had about 575,000 head of cattle in 2002, but considering the recent floods and food shortages this number may have dropped. In addition to the floods and food shortages, North Koreans must contend with the bovine diseases that cause health concerns not only to the cattle, but also for the people.

The most serious incident took place last summer. It began in the North Korean region of Yanggang. A horrible and mysterious disease that the frightened residents called “leprosy” for the impact on victims, causing them to break out in boils and oozing skin that progressed to the point that, as one North Korean defector described it, left its victims looking “like pieces of sliced meat”.

The story was first reported by the North Korea Daily (July 27, 2006), which described the disease as an epidemic, but no one knows just how many victims it has claimed. One defector living in South Korea told a newspaper reporter that he had spoken with some members of his family still in North Korea who informed him the “rotten flesh disease” was spreading throughout the northern provinces.

Many North Korean residents believed that the disease originated from contaminated beef sold in the Jangmadang markets. Apparently there was some truth to their suspicions. According to the North Korea Daily, the sale of beef and the movement of cattle in the region were banned or tightly controlled.

What was the disease? Several veterinarian experts contacted suggested that it was anthrax, a naturally occurring disease among cattle and other hoofed mammals. All agreed that if a person ate the flesh of an anthrax-diseased animal he had a high risk of dying.

But not all of the experts agreed that it was anthrax. Dr Martin Hugh-Jones of Louisiana State University conceded that the “oozing skin sores” might well be anthrax cutaneous lesions, but “while it is tempting to suggest ‘anthrax’, I know of no lesions involving peeling skin or people looking like ‘sliced meat’.”

It is almost inconceivable that people would willingly eat the flesh of a possibly diseased animal, but it has happened several times in North Korea. In fact, many North Korean people believe that contaminated meat can be eaten if it is boiled at 100 degrees Celsius or higher.

Last January, farmers in the Tuman River region began to lose cattle to a disease they simply called the “cow disease”. The cattle all displayed the same symptoms: hooves splitting, heavy drooling, and sores in their mouths and on their tongues. Local health officials were called in. They determined that the disease had traveled across the Tuman River from China.

In December 2005, China reported several outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease in the interior provinces, but it was suspected that the disease had also spread to Heilongjang province, one of China’s key cattle raising areas located along the North Korean border, and possibly into neighboring Russia.

Dr Peter Roeder of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and Dr Hugh-Jones agree that the symptoms appear to be indicative of foot-and-mouth disease. Roeder stated, “I did not have information that it had got into North Korea but I am not surprised.”

At least one region was quarantined to prevent the spread of the disease. Cattle that displayed any of the symptoms were quickly killed and buried in deep pits in a further effort to prevent the spread of the disease. Despite the North Korean officials’ precautions to ensure that the cattle carcasses were buried, it was soon discovered that two of the infected cows were missing. Someone had dug them up.

The local officials warned the people that eating the contaminated meat could kill children under the age of five. Roeder insisted that foot-and-mouth disease did not affect humans, and Hugh-Jones supported him by adding, “Eating such a carcass should not of itself be dangerous other than the usual dangers from eating meat from sick and moribund animals.”

Did contaminated meat cause the strange leprosy-like disease that allegedly plagued Yanggang? Were diseased cattle carcasses dug up from pits, butchered, sold and eaten by hungry or greedy residents? Both doctors agreed that North Korea is a black hole for disease information and that in such countries nasty diseases will be politically unattractive and therefore official reports will be played down and minimal.

Both doctors were again in agreement when they observed that defectors and refugees have a poor record of reliability in what they say and write. Exaggeration is the commonest characteristic, they said.

But not all possibly contaminated meat originated in North Korea.

In 2001, during the height of the bovine spongiform encephalopathy (mad-cow disease) scare in Europe, many countries slaughtered hundreds of thousands of head of cattle in an effort to check the disease. Famine-stricken North Korea agreed to accept some of the possibly contaminated beef from Germany and Switzerland (see German meat may be North Korean poison, Asia Times Online, February 23, 2001).

As retired veterinarian Patricia Doyle noted, “It is a very nasty stunt to pass on infected cattle to any people, regardless of their ideology. It is the government who may have political differences not the people.”

But if a government would be desperate enough to feed its citizens meat possibly contaminated with a fatal disease, how far are starving people willing to go to satisfy, if only for a short time, the hunger in their bellies? Further, it seems, than most of us would like to acknowledge.

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
1/18/2007

On the 9th, a Japanese broadcast “tv asahi” exposed footages of drug smuggling at a boarder station between North Korea and China.

The footage caught a North Korean dealer crossing the Tumen River via a tube. On meeting a female Chinese dealer, the North Korean dealer unraveled a pink package which contained an envelope written “Opium powder” in red.

The drug seems to have been manufactured at “Ranam pharmaceutical factory.” This factory is known for its manufacture of mediocre drugs. Although opium is normally supposed to be packaged as medication, it is common that the drug falls into the hands of smugglers.

The moment the Chinese dealer gets hold of the package, she confirms the quality of the drug and hands over Chinese currency. The North Korean dealer counts the money and scurries back over to North Korea. It was agreed that additional dealings would be made via the telephone.

The transaction that was made on this day was 8~9 bags, each containing 100g of opium. 

As the international community continues to enforce its regulations against drugs and counterfeit dollars, drugs dealings have taken effect in North Korea with increasing illegal trades occurring between China and North Korea, the broadcast claimed. In addition, the number of drug addicts in North Korea is also on the rise.

The footage also captured the North Korean drug dealers sniffing the drugs as well as the dealers talking about the transaction. Of the dealers, one person was a worker managing the level of humidity at a manufacturing factory and seemingly the intermediary supplier who obtained the drugs.

It seems that the 3~4 people sitting in a circle are personally testing the quality of the drugs before purchase. Although the dealer’s child has entered the room, the buyers continue to inhale the drugs.

The woman who seems to be buying the drugs in this footage, scrupulously inhales the drug as if her body was very accustomed to it.

The woman showed signs of drug addiction murmuring “I’m so used to it (taking drugs). My hardest moment was when I was in custody. If I can’t sniff any drugs, my nose is runny and my head spins.”

Also, she suggested that drug addiction had spread throughout North Korea “It has spread from the top, right to the bottom.”

As the dealers need to give bribes to the border guards, a deposit is first received then the balance paid after the goods given.

Comments were also made on the distribution of the latest drugs. The latest drug, blue in color is made naturally and is much more effective than the original, so is very popular amongst the rich.

Of the people there, one man was acting as the link to the boarder patrol, whereas the remaining people examined the issue of reliable Chinese buyers.

The first footage exclusive of North Koreans communally taking drugs was exposed in Korea by the DailyNK in October 2005.

Daily NK
Yang Jung A
1/17/2007

Recently, infectious diseases have been spreading throughout North Korean regions with North Korean authorities in a state of emergency, sources informed.

A source revealed in a phone conversation with the DailyNK on the 15th “There are 4 different diseases spreading throughout North Korea. Scarlet fever, typhoid, paratyphoid and typhus fever” and said “North Korean regions including Pyongyang are under extreme caution.” However, the source informed that figures indicating the number of deaths caused by the diseases had not yet been released.

He said “Scarlet fever originated in the province of Yangkang last October and has spread to Pyongyang, prevailing throughout the country” and added “though it could be easily treated with antibiotics, the nation cannot give us the supplies and we cannot go to the hospital as the cost of medicine has risen.”

Though it is not the right season for these illnesses to be spreading, the source revealed his thoughts that the diseases had dispersed due to the contamination of drinking water.

He said “As electricity is only supplied 1~2 hours a day, the water pump does not function properly and so water can only be derived from the tap for 1 hour, once a week” and “As a result, people resorted to the mountains and river for water and despite it being winter, it seems the diseases spread this way.”

In the conversation, the source residing in North Korea said “Chongjin is in a severe crisis” and “Undoubtedly schools and enterprises found to be infected have closed doors. Train operations have also been suspended, so all movement has been stopped.”

Also, he reported “As all modes of transportation have been suspended beginning with the trains, whenever transport is used, health permits (certifying that you have no infectious disease) are verified and so travel has become regulated.”

“The whole city has been infected with the disease and has become immobilized” explained the source.

In addition, he said “About 300~400 people from each district have been found to be infected with the disease and are receiving treatment at home. In Chongjing alone, it is likely that more than 3,000 people are disease infected with the majority of people infected with scarlet fever.”

Further, he informed “More and more of the lower class are dying of starvation and are becoming street dwellers as they cannot work due to their sickness” and said “in order to prevent people from dying of starvation, each district is accommodating 200 people in the hospitals.”