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(3rd LD) N. Korea confirms H1N1 outbreak, S. Korea moves to offer aid
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Dec. 9 (Yonhap) -- North Korea on Wednesday acknowledged for the first time that it has domestic cases of Influenza A, raising international concern that the virus may spread rapidly among its impoverished population.
The report by the North's Korean Central News Agency said nine people have contracted the H1N1 virus. Seoul officials said they have relayed a message to the North offering aid to help fight the new flu.
"New Influenza A/H1N1 broke out in some areas of the DPRK amid the growing of its victims worldwide," the North's Korean Central News Agency said in an English-language report. DPRK stands for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, the North's official name.
The flu virus cases were confirmed in Sinuiju, a northern town bordering China, and in the capital, Pyongyang, the report said, citing the Ministry of Public Health. Its State Emergency Anti-epidemic Committee has taken actions to prevent a pandemic and strengthen medical treatment for patients, the report said.
"The relevant organ is further perfecting the quarantine system against the spread of this flu virus while properly carrying on the prevention and medical treatment," the report said.
The announcement comes a day after South Korean President Lee Myung-bak ordered his government to draw up measures to help stem a possible outbreak of the disease in the North. Seoul sent a message through "indirect channels" offering aid to Pyongyang, an official at the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae said.
North Korea observers have long speculated that the North was unlikely to remain insulated from the new flu strain, with its border wide open toward China, which has been reporting a steep rise in H1N1-related deaths. Good Friends, a Seoul-based aid group, said this week that North Korea started winter school vacation a month early on Dec. 4 due to the rapid spread of the disease.
"We relayed the message to North Korea yesterday (Tuesday) through various indirect channels of communication and now it's North Korea's turn to make a response," the Cheong Wa Dae official told Yonhap News Agency, asking not to be identified.
Seoul was considering shipments of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu and other medicine, Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung said.
In May, the World Health Organization supplied an emergency stockpile of 35,000 Tamiflu tablets each to North Korea and about 70 developing countries, but Seoul officials say that is not enough.
"Considering the North's population is 24 million, and the infection rate going up to 20 to 30 percent in underdeveloped countries, the North would need the drug by the millions," said Kwon Jun-wook, a H1N1 specialist at the South's health ministry.
North Korea is designated by the WHO as a "special administrative region" because of its high death rate from tuberculosis, which rises when there is a food shortage. Kwon said the H1N1 virus has an even higher infection rate than tuberculosis and would be more dangerous to the North Korean people, many of whom are undernourished and may have impaired immune systems.
In the affluent South, 117 people have so far died from the new flu virus.
Dong Yong-sueng, a North Korea analyst with the Samsung Economic Research Institute, said the new flu outbreak will further constrain the North's economic activity, already hit hard by a drastic currency exchange that took effect without notice last week.
"There may not even be a precise concept about what the new flu is (among the general population)," Dong said. "People's activity will be further constrained, but they may not be even in a place where they are able to make assessments and cope with it."
The North's confirmation of domestic H1N1 cases comes during a visit to Pyongyang by U.S. special representative for North Korea policy, Stephen Bosworth. The envoy will hold the first official dialogue with the North since the Barack Obama administration took power in Washington early this year, and aims to bring the North back to a multilateral forum over its nuclear program.
During previous pandemics, such as the avian flu outbreak in 2005, the isolated North promptly called for international help.
hkim@yna.co.kr
(END)
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