S. Korea sends flu aid to N. Korea

(ATTN: UPDATES lead to 5th para with N. Korea's thanks for aid, officials' quotes)
By Kim Hyun
SEOUL, Dec. 18 (Yonhap) -- South Korea sent H1N1 flu medications for 500,000
people to North Korea on Friday in the first state-level humanitarian assistance
to its impoverished neighbor in nearly two years.
North Korea acknowledged Dec. 9 that it has had nine cases of the Influenza A
virus infection, but it has yet to report any flu-related deaths.
The shipment of Tamiflu and Relenza worth US$15 million was transported over the
military demarcation line to the North's border town of Kaesong in the morning.
North Korea thanked South Korea for the aid, said Kim Young-il, a Unification
Ministry official who traveled with refrigerator trucks carrying the drugs.
"North Korea expressed deep gratitude to South Korea over its prompt provision of
the medications," Kim told reporters after returning from the trip.
North Korean officials also said they will distribute the medications through
city or province authorities, Kim noted. But the Seoul official added that he had
no new information about the scope of the flu infection in the North.
According to the World Health Organization, the North's Health Ministry reported
that the nine patients -- all schoolchildren aged between 11 and 14 -- have
recovered and no additional cases have been reported.
But Seoul doubts the credibility of the report.
"Judging from various bits of intelligence, the new flu appears to be spreading
in North Korea," a senior ministry official said at a background briefing,
Still, the senior official and others in the ministry said Seoul wanted to take
preemptive measures for the winter, during which the spread of the H1N1 flu virus
may speed up. The amount of medicine sent is enough for each North Korean patient
to take for five days.
About 1 billion won (US$846,740) worth of hand sanitizer will be also delivered
as soon as the government acquires the shipment from manufacturers, likely in
mid-January.
The Tamiflu aid marks the first humanitarian assistance the South Korean
government has provided to North Korea since conservative President Lee Myung-bak
took office in Seoul last year. Lee cut off the unconditional aid that his
liberal predecessors had shipped to the North over the past decade, conditioning
inter-Korean exchanges on progress in the North's denuclearization.
The inter-Korean aid comes amid a flurry of diplomacy between North Korea and the
United States on ways to resume a multilateral negotiating forum on ending the
North's nuclear program.
hkim@yna.co.kr
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