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Although `officially’ the North Korean government has yet to report any cases of the novel H1N1 virus, reports continue to filter out of that closed nation that the virus is spreading.
South Korea today, based on these reports, has offered humanitarian aid to the North, although it isn’t clear whether it will be accepted.
This from Yonhap News.
Lee orders measures to help N. Korea deal with H1N1
SEOUL, Dec. 8 (Yonhap) -- South Korean President Lee Myung-bak ordered his government Tuesday to help North Korea deal with a possible outbreak of Influenza A, saying the disease could do serious damage throughout the impoverished state.
"There are reports of an outbreak of the new flu in North Korea, so find ways to help North Korea after confirming the reports," the president was quoted as saying in a Cabinet meeting by his office Cheong Wa Dae.
North Korea has not yet announced any local case of the H1N1 virus, but Good Friends, a Seoul-based aid group, said in its Monday bulletin that about a dozen people have died from the disease there. Schools started winter vacation a month early on Dec. 4 due to the rapid spread of disease, the aid group said, citing sources inside North Korea.
Relations between the two Koreas quickly deteriorated after Lee, a conservative, was inaugurated early last year with a pledge to condition inter-Korean exchanges on progress in Pyongyang's denuclearization.
Lee, however, said any assistance to the North in dealing with the H1N1 virus must be strictly humanitarian and unconditional, his spokesman Park Sun-kyoo said.
"Such assistance must be provided swiftly as the disease could quickly spread in North Korea where conditions are not so good," Lee was quoted as saying.
