North plagued by tuberculosis strain resistant to medicine

North Korea is being plagued by a widespread and difficult strain of tuberculosis and needs urgent measures to curb it, the chairman of a South Korean aid group said yesterday.

“The spread of multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is so serious that North Korea is judged to be missing the crucial ‘golden time’ to root out tuberculosis,” Stephen Linton, the chairman of Eugene Bell Foundation, said in a news conference.

The chairman of the charity foundation dedicated to medical aid for the reclusive country paid a two-week visit to the North in October to tour eight tuberculosis treatment centers in Pyongyang and central regions.

Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis is defined as tuberculosis that is resistant to several types of drugs, a strain that is relatively difficult to treat and requires far more expensive medicine than easier cases.

Yonhap