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UN OKs Sending Anti-Virus Supplies to North Korea

Oh Taek-sung

   WASHINGTON - Doctors without Borders, the international medical aid
   group, can now send medical supplies to North Korea where the
   government is on high alert in an attempt to remain free of the
   coronavirus, despite its proximity to China and South Korea.
   The U.N. Sanctions Committee on North Korea approved [1]Doctors without
   Borders, or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), to send supplies to North
   Korea, according to [2]the committee's website.

   The approval letter signed by Christoph Heusgen, the chair of the
   committee and the German ambassador to the U.N., allows the aid group
   to "engage in humanitarian activities" in North Korea by providing the
   country's Ministry of Public Health "with essential Personal Protective
   Equipment (PPE) and diagnostic items."

   Approved items include goggles, thermometers, and stethoscopes, and
   kits to diagnose whether people with flu-like symptoms of COVID-19 have
   actually contracted the virus. The exemption is in effect from February
   20 to August 20.

   Kee Park, a lecturer at Harvard Medical School who has worked on
   medical projects in North Korea many times, welcomed the exemptions at
   a time of a global health emergency.
   "This is a good sign," said Park. "They're speeding things up as
   quickly as possible. It's within days that the approval comes through
   the Sanctions Committee. And nongovernment organizations [NGOs] can go
   ahead and start making arrangements to send the supplies in."

References

   1. https://www.msf.org/
   2. https://www.un.org/securitycouncil/sites/www.un.org.securitycouncil/files/msf_reply_exemption_request_20feb20_english.pdf

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