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North Korea needs broader strategy against malnutrition

Friday, 19 September 1997: UNICEF today warned that emergency food aid is only a partial solution to the present crisis in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) and that broader and longer-term measures such as those in health and medical training are also needed.

"Food aid is, of course, top priority," said Peter McDermott, Deputy Director of UNICEF Emergency Operations, addressing a special Washington, DC, briefing on DPRK. "But we must go beyond that. The complexities of the situation demand a far more comprehensive approach, which must include a focus on longer-term health care programmes and the training of medical staff."

Mr. McDermott, who recently returned from a fact-finding mission to DPRK, was speaking at a briefing organized by the Congressional Hunger Society and the Korea Society and attended by top US policy makers, UN officials and aid workers. He explained that, without much-needed health care, clean water and sanitation, the positive effects of food aid would be severely undermined. Preventable diseases have already taken the lives of thousands of children and thousands more are at risk, he said. He urged aid agencies to remember the lessons learned from past famines, such as that in Somalia, during which more than half the children who lost their lives died, not from lack of food, but from diarrhoea and measles.

Hospitals throughout the country lack basic drugs and equipment and the health care structure is in a state of virtual collapse. He described having seen makeshift intravenous drips in hospitals made from unsterilized rubber tubing and beer bottles. "There is little point in feeding children only to send them home to communities where they risk dying from poor health care," he said.

The lack of reliable, empirical data on DPRK has made it difficult to measure accurately the extent and severity of the crisis. It is now estimated that approximately 80,000 children in the country are severely malnourished and in danger of starvation or disease. Government figures put malnutrition of children under five at 38 per cent or 800,000.

The country has been hard hit by a series of natural disasters in the past three years, from widespread flooding in 1995-96 to a devastating drought this year and a typhoon last month. A recent Food and Agriculture Organization/World Food Programme Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission estimated that the domestic production of cereals for the period November 1997 to October 1998, even under the most optimistic scenario, will cover less than half the country's minimum food needs.

UNICEF continues to combine emergency supplementary food aid -- it has supplied more than 110 tons of high energy milk for severely malnourished children since May 1997 -- with support for the training of medical staff and the provision of essential supplies to hospitals and health institutions. Since May 1997, UNICEF has trained more than 400 medical and other staff in 107 institutions. Basic equipment, drugs, medical kits and vitamin supplements have been supplied to hospitals countrywide.

UNICEF recently tripled its international appeal for North Korea to US$14.3 million, with a significant proportion of the increased funds to be allocated to improving health care; to date, only US$3.5 million has been received.