SEOUL, Feb. 1 (UPI) -- A South Korean aid organization says it will provide medicine to North Korea to help curb rapidly spreading endemics.
The South-North Sharing Community, a South Korean aid group affiliated with the National Unification Advisory Council, said Thursday it would ship $80,000 worth of medicines to the North next week.
The plan comes amid reports that infectious diseases, such as scarlet fever, typhoid, typhus and paratyphoid, were rapidly spreading throughout North Korea.
The authorities in the impoverished country could not contain the contagion due to dilapidated medical facilities and lack of medicines and electricity to run medical devices, aid groups said.
The South Korean government suspended its food and fertilizer aid to its communist neighbor following its nuclear and missile tests last year.
