(PORTLAND, ORE. - Sept. 18, 2007) Medical Teams International and its partners are air shipping emergency medicines valued at $1 million to North Korea this Thursday. The medical supplies will help thousands of North Koreans affected by some of the worst flooding in decades.
According to aid officials in North Korea, government authorities are now calling medical assistance the number one priority to help the more than 1 million people directly affected by last month's disaster. The medical supplies from Medical Teams International include antibiotics, malaria and cholera medicines. The essential medicines will help 20,000 people for three months.
North Korea's urgent request for humanitarian assistance is its first appeal since 1995, when severe flooding killed nearly 2 million people.
"The North Korean government in the flood region has worked with us to ensure that the medicines will reach people who need it most," says Bill Essig, vice president of international programs at Medical Teams International. "We will continue to work with their government to monitor the need for additional supplies and to assist with health needs."
Medical Teams International (formerly Northwest Medical Teams) is partnering with the Dutch agency Dorcas Aid International to send the essential medicines from The Netherlands. Christian Friends of Korea, an in-country partner of Medical Teams International, will help distribute the supplies once they reach the disaster-affected region.
Essig is tentatively slated to visit North Korea in October. He hopes to meet with officials from the Ministry of Health and tour hospitals and clinics where the medicines will be used. Medical Teams International sent medical supplies to North Korea (also known as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea) in 1998 and deployed an assessment team following a typhoon in 1997.
[ Any views expressed in this article are those of the writer and not of Reuters. ]
