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South Korea approves joint civic fight against malaria in North Korea

By Elizabeth Shim
South Korean soldiers stand guard at the joint security area of Panmunjom. Cross-border exchange is rare between the two Koreas, but Seoul has approved an anti-malaria program that could travel to the North as early as June. Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI
South Korean soldiers stand guard at the joint security area of Panmunjom. Cross-border exchange is rare between the two Koreas, but Seoul has approved an anti-malaria program that could travel to the North as early as June. Photo by Keizo Mori/UPI | License Photo

May 26 (UPI) -- South Korea could soon help North Korea fight malaria, six years after a joint disease-fighting project was suspended due to tensions on the peninsula.

The measure is being announced only weeks after the presidential election of Moon Jae-in, a progressive politician who had pledged to take a more conciliatory approach to North Korea.

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Korean Sharing Movement, a civic group in Seoul, received approval from Seoul's unification ministry to supply $850,000 worth of medicine, diagnostic kits and vehicles to fight the infectious disease in an area of North Korea near the South Korean border, Yonhap reported Friday.

Three South Korean provincial and municipal authorities are sponsoring the project. All three local governments represent regions that border North Korea, and South Korean aid workers could be dispatched to the North between June and August.

The civilian aid program was active between 2008 and 2011, and brought nearly $2 million worth of anti-malaria aid to North Korea.

Tensions in 2012 brought an end to the exchange.

South Korean expertise in battling the disease, often spread through mosquitoes, may have improved conditions in North Korea.

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More than 1,600 North Koreans were suffering from malaria in 2007 in the border regions, but that number dropped to 339 by 2013.

In the absence of civic exchange, the number of malaria patients in the border regions rose to 458 in 2014, 545 in 2015, then dropping slightly, to 492 in 2016, according to Yonhap.

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