Series: North Korea network
A series of photographs released by state media shows that the regime is taking the threat of disease very seriously indeed
It started with a request to sworn enemies South Korea for emergency medical supplies to prevent the spread of contagious diseases.
Then came the news that Pyongyang was barring all tourists in its efforts to prevent the contagion from entering and spreading within the country.
On Thursday there were reports that all foreigners in North Korea were to be quarantined for 21 days so as to stop them infecting the local population.
The same day the country’s state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) took the unusual step of publishing a short article about Ebola, featuring images of painfully ill patients and health workers in heavy protective clothing in west Africa.
Then Daily NK reported that North Korea has restricted entry to Pyongyang. “In order to prevent transmission of the Ebola virus, a central command office for hygiene and quarantine has been set up,” a source in North Hamgyung Province told the site. “They have also been placing limits on travel permits for people in regional areas since mid-October.”
Now photographs have emerged on KCNA that appear to show North Korean health workers visiting homes and classrooms to educate people about the virus and warn them to take precautions.
It’s impossible to verify where the photographs were taken or what they actually show – but they appear to suggest that the regime is taking the risk extremely seriously.
It’s not the first time. North Korea closed its borders for several months in 2003 during the Sars outbreak. But then most cases of Sars were in China – and most flights to Pyongyang are from Beijing.
Although more than 13,700 people have become infected by the Ebola virus, most of those cases have been in Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea, with 20 in Nigeria, four in the US and one each in Mali, Senegal and Spain.
The business training organisation Choson Exchange, which was forced to cancel a workshop in Singapore because North Korea refused to send participants over Ebola fears, said the response raised several questions.
“Is it a genuine fear that they could not deal with a single case of Ebola?” Choson Exchange asked. “Is it a message for the domestic audience? Is it that North Korea’s underlying ‘fear of the foreign’ is greater than their desire to be part of international society?”
And, as the New York Times points out, another question is whether Kim Yong-nam, the head of Supreme People’s Assembly of North Korea, will be quarantined when he returns from Africa, where he is visiting Ethiopia, Sudan, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.