North Korea today announced the outbreak of another infectious disease in addition to the ongoing epidemic of Kovid-19 and said that the leader of the country Kim Jong Un has donated his personal medicine to those suffering from the new disease, the Associated Press reported.
It is not clear how serious the new epidemic is, but some outside observers say North Korea may be aiming to improve its leader’s image by portraying him as concerned about the lives of the population, as he needs more public support. to overcome the difficulties associated with the pandemic.
Yesterday, the North Korean leader offered the drugs his family has to people diagnosed with an “acute intestinal epidemic” in the southeastern city of Heju, the official Korean Central News Agency said. The agency did not specify what exactly the epidemic was and how many people were infected.
The official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Korean Workers’ Party, Rodon Xingmun, published a separate photo on the front page of Kim Jong Un and his wife, Ni Sol-ju, in which they reviewed saline solutions and drugs they were preparing to donate.
External observers say the “intestinal epidemic” in North Korea is an infectious disease such as typhoid fever, dysentery or cholera. These are intestinal diseases caused by microbes through contaminated food and water or through contact with the feces of infected people. Such diseases are common in the country due to the lack of good water treatment facilities and largely due to the destroyed public health infrastructure since the mid-1990s.
Last month, North Korea reported an increase in the number of patients with fever-like symptoms after recognizing an epidemic of covid, and South Korea’s spy agency said a “significant number” of cases included measles, typhoid and whooping cough. .
More than 4.5 million of the country’s 26 million people have contracted undefined fever, the Korean Central News Agency said, and only 73 have died. The DPRK has registered only a small number of them as covid, due to the apparent lack of testing kits in the country. Foreign experts have questioned the death toll, saying it was likely to be underestimated to prevent possible domestic damage to Kim’s rule.
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