North Korea's Dying Healthcare System

The government sent 200.000 liters of hand sanitizer to help fight against the spread of H1N1 influenza to North Korea on Feb 23. The hand sanitizer, worth about 1 billion won, was transported along with 27 South Korean government officials including Director for the Humanitarian Assistance Division of MOU.
On 27 March, state media in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea officially reported the country’s first outbreak of avian influenza in poultry. To date, outbreaks involving large numbers of poultry have been reported at commercial poultry farms, including one in Pyongyang Province. Mass culling has been undertaken by the authorities in an effort to prevent further spread.
Nearly one third of North Korean mothers and 37 percent of the children under six are malnourished according to the U.N.'s World Food Program.
According to North Korean statistics, the average life expectancy at birth for both sexes was a little over thirty-eight years in the 1936-40 period. By 1986 North Korean statistics claimed life expectancy had risen to 70.9 years for males and 77.3 years for females. According to UN statistics, life expectancy in 1990 was about sixty-six years for males and almost seventy-three years for females. North Korean sources reported that crude death rates fell from 20.8 per 1,000 people in 1944 to 5 per 1,000 in 1986; infant mortality, from 204 per 1,000 live births to 9.8 per 1,000 in the same period. Eberstadt and Banister report that these mortality figures were probably understated (they estimate infant mortality at around 31 per 1,000 live births in 1990); they conclude, however, that the statistics "suggest that the mortality transition in North Korea over the past three decades has not only improved overall survival chances but reduced previous differences in mortality between urban and rural areas."
North Korea has a national medical service and health insurance system. As of 2000, some 99 percent of the population had access to sanitation,...