Posted on 05/08/2003 4:00:28 PM PDT by blam
Sars crackdown in North Korea isolates foreigners
By Jasper Becker in Beijing
09 May 2003
North Korea has taken 20 foreigners into quarantine and closed its borders in response to severe acute respiratory syndrome. The move may threaten the delivery of emergency food aid.
"They cancelled May Day celebrations, stopped flights and anyone coming in is put into quarantine for 10 days," a Westerner living in Pyongyang said yesterday.
"They are taking it very seriously. Anyone from an affected area is being quarantined," he said. The foreigners, who include two diplomats, are being kept together in a hotel near the capital.
The country's only scheduled air link with the outside world, the twice weekly Air Koryo flight to Beijing, has been cancelled since Saturday, although a weekly flight from Vladivostok, Russia, may still be running. The regular ferry service with Japan has been suspended.
But KCNA, the North Korean news agency, denies that there are any suspected Sars cases in the country, a claim also made by The Korea Times, a South Korean newspaper. The KCNA said: "Lurking behind the false report [of cases] is a sinister intention to tarnish the image of the DPRK, which has the best healthcare system for people."
The emergency measures taken at airports, rail and sea ports are bound to interrupt the drip feed of foreign aid, which keeps the fragile economy, and many people, alive.
Five UN officials responsible for supervising deliveries of food and other aid, upon which at least a third of population relies, are among those in quarantine. Gerald Bourke, a spokesman for the World Food Programme in Beijing, said: "Shipments [to North Korea] are not affected but for the moment we have fewer people on the ground. Of course, if there were to be an outbreak, given the weak condition of the people it would be very serious. They don't have the medical infrastructure to cope with an outbreak."
The cruise ship that carries tourists from South Korea to the resort of Mount Kumgang in North Korea, which brings in a steady flow of foreign currency, has stopped running, and more than 10,000 people have had to cancel their visits.
South Korean officials participating in ministerial-level talks last week in Pyongyang could not get off the aircraft until they provided health certificates and had their temperatures taken. Once in Pyongyang, they were not permitted to leave their hotel.
Meanwhile, China, the country worst affected by Sars, said yesterday that five more people had died of the disease and a further 146 were infected, taking the death toll there to 224 and the number of cases to 4,698. The World Health Organisation also placed Taipei on its list of places to avoid. The UN agency said travellers should "consider postponing all but essential travel" to the Taiwanese capital, as well as to China's northern city of Tianjin and the northern province of Inner Mongolia. Beijing, Hong Kong and the Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Shanxi are already on the list.
Four WHO health experts travelled to China's Hebei province, where the number of suspected infections has risen sharply, to assess whether the healthcare system could cope with the outbreak. The province surrounds Beijing, home to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers from Hebei.
In rural China, some villages have set up roadblocks to try to stop people travelling to the capital.
The International Monetary Fund played down the impact of Sars on Asian and global economies yesterday. Tom Dawson, the external relations director, said: "If the disease is contained soon, the macroeconomic impact in Asia should be manageable given the robustness of the economies." The global impact was also likely to be limited, he said.
If people break it, they can just shoot them!
But if they starve to death, they won't spread SARS to the leadership.
Three flights per week into that country. Mind-boggling.
It has been claimed that the Sars outbreak has had a greater impact on tourism than either last year's terrorist attack on Bali or the Iraq war.
The World Tourism Organisation has just launched a study on the disease's impact on the industry.
It's secretary-general Francesco Frangialli made the claim and said businesses should "not over-react" to the crisis.
He said he expected tourism growth to recover in the second half of this year and believed year-end figures would show an increase on 2002.
Mr Frangialli said: "But the industry's performance will be challenged, especially in the fastest growing region of Asia and the Pacific, which showed an 8% increase in 2002."
The WTO has been unhappy about some of the health warnings issued in connection with Sars.
Mr Frangialli said today: "While governments and other institutions must assume their responsibilities in protecting citizens from proven risks, the recommended restrictions should be no broader than strictly needed to avoid creating additional problems for industries like tourism, which can make such a decisive contribution to social and economic development."
Story filed: 12:47 Thursday 8th May 2003
It has been claimed that the Sars outbreak has had a greater impact on tourism than either last year's terrorist attack on Bali or the Iraq war.
The World Tourism Organisation has just launched a study on the disease's impact on the industry.
It's secretary-general Francesco Frangialli made the claim and said businesses should "not over-react" to the crisis.
He said he expected tourism growth to recover in the second half of this year and believed year-end figures would show an increase on 2002.
Mr Frangialli said: "But the industry's performance will be challenged, especially in the fastest growing region of Asia and the Pacific, which showed an 8% increase in 2002."
The WTO has been unhappy about some of the health warnings issued in connection with Sars.
Mr Frangialli said today: "While governments and other institutions must assume their responsibilities in protecting citizens from proven risks, the recommended restrictions should be no broader than strictly needed to avoid creating additional problems for industries like tourism, which can make such a decisive contribution to social and economic development."
Story filed: 12:47 Thursday 8th May 2003
It has been claimed that the Sars outbreak has had a greater impact on tourism than either last year's terrorist attack on Bali or the Iraq war.
The World Tourism Organisation has just launched a study on the disease's impact on the industry.
It's secretary-general Francesco Frangialli made the claim and said businesses should "not over-react" to the crisis.
He said he expected tourism growth to recover in the second half of this year and believed year-end figures would show an increase on 2002.
Mr Frangialli said: "But the industry's performance will be challenged, especially in the fastest growing region of Asia and the Pacific, which showed an 8% increase in 2002."
The WTO has been unhappy about some of the health warnings issued in connection with Sars.
Mr Frangialli said today: "While governments and other institutions must assume their responsibilities in protecting citizens from proven risks, the recommended restrictions should be no broader than strictly needed to avoid creating additional problems for industries like tourism, which can make such a decisive contribution to social and economic development."
Story filed: 12:47 Thursday 8th May 2003
The Chinese provinces abutted to North Korea are almost as bad as North Korea, they're having their own famine.
I just wonder what kind of moves NK will make if SARS gets really bad there?
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