Unification Minister Hong Yong-pyo will visit a checkpoint at the inter-Korean border this week to help soothe concerns over the spread of the MERS virus, the ministry said Friday.
Hong plans to visit the Customs, Immigration and Quarantine office and the Unification Observatory in Paju, the border city northwest of Seoul on Saturday in an effort to contain the spread of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome, according to Unification Ministry spokesman Lim Byeong-cheol.
The CIQ office is a gateway into North Korea, through which hundreds of South Korean businessmen move in and out of an inter-Korean joint industrial park in the North’s border city of Kaesong. The observatory sits on the 118-meter-high Odu Mountain in Paju.
The move comes as South Korea has reported 11 deaths related to MERS and 126 patients since the first outbreak on May 20.
North Korea has been highly sensitive to the outbreak of contagious diseases due to its weak health care system. Last year, Pyongyang imposed an entry ban on foreign tourists for about five months due to Ebola concerns.
South Korea has installed three thermal scanners at the North’s checkpoints entering the Kaesong Industrial Complex, where about 53,000 North Koreans work.
Vice Unification Minister Hwang Boo-gi on Sunday plans to visit Hanawon, a resettlement center for North Korean defectors, in Anseong, Gyeonggi Province, Lim added. (Yonhap)
