As a doctor in North Korea during the SARS outbreak and flu pandemic, Choi Jung Hun didn't have much more than a thermometer to decide who should be quarantined. Barely paid, with no test kits and working with antiquated equipment, if anything, he and his fellow doctors in the northeastern city of
SEOUL, South Korea — As a doctor in North Korea during the SARS outbreak and flu pandemic, Choi Jung Hun didn't have much more than a thermometer to decide who should be quarantined.
Outsiders strongly suspect that coronavirus, which has infected more than 2.4 million people, has already spread to North Korea because it shares a long, porous border with China, its most important trading partner and biggest aid benefactor. China is where the first known coronavirus cases were reported in December.
Russia’s foreign ministry said in February it donated 1,500 coronavirus test kits to North Korea, and observers say similar kits have also been shipped there from China. Some relief agencies, including UNICEF and Doctors Without Borders, said they sent gloves, masks, goggles and hand hygiene products to North Korea.
Choi, the doctor who worked in North Korea, said his monthly salary was the equivalent of about 2 kilograms of rice and that he received cigarettes from patients in return for telling them what medicine they should buy at markets.
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