ROK Offers Disinfectants and Vaccines to Help DPRK Fight FMD Outbreak

The South Korean government offered to donate disinfectants and vaccines to help the DPRK contain an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease [FMD] at Pyongyang area farms. According to Yonhap, the Unification Ministry “said South Korea plans to provide disinfectants and preventive medicine to the North if Pyongyang calls for Seoul’s aid during the possible talks.” The offer was made, according to Yonhap, “amid signs of warming ties between the arch-rivals” and came “as a second round of reunions is under way at a North Korean mountain resort for hundreds of South and North Korean families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War.” In an unusually candid news item on the FMD outbreak, KCNA reported that“the disease continues spreading due to the shortages of FMD vaccines, diagnostic means and disinfection medicines” which seemed to be an indirect appeal for foreign assistance in combating the outbreak.