# 4201
Although the North Korean government has had very little to say about it, reports continue to filter out of that closed, impoverished country that suggest the pandemic virus is having a serious impact.
Earlier this month, in a humanitarian gesture, South Korea offered emergency supplies (including Tamiflu) to the north, to help them fight the pandemic (South Korea Offers Pandemic Humanitarian Aid To The North).
Today, the Wall Street Journal has a report – gleaned from information provided by the Good Friends aid group working in North Korea – that suggests the situation in that country may be more serious than previously thought.
DECEMBER 30, 2009, 6:50 A.M. ET
By JAEYEON WOO
North Korea sent out a nationwide alert in recent days about the apparent worsening spread of H1N1 flu there, according to an aid group with contacts in the country.
The notice by the Seoul-based Buddhist aid group Good Friends follows the South Korean government's shipment of 400,000 doses of the flu treatment Tamiflu and 100,000 doses of the treatment Relenza to its impoverished neighbor earlier this month amid fears that a delayed response to the disease in the North could lead to serious consequences for the South.
Good Friends said this week that North Korean officials had issued a statement that said patients suffering from the disease should be given priority. The group said the statement was of a type issued only twice before, for seriously wounded soldiers during the 1950-1953 Korean War and for a deadly skirmish with South Korea in 2002.
The true picture within highly restrictive North Korea is difficult to determine. Officials there couldn't be reached.
