N. Korea halts tours over Ebola

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un inspecting the completed apartment houses for lecturers from Kim Chaek University of Technology in Pyongyang on October 17, 2014. North Korea will close its borders to foreign tourists on October 24, 2014 due to Ebola fears. FILE PHOTO | AFP

What you need to know:

  • North Korean state news agency KCNA did not confirm the ban, but said “thorough preventive measures” were being taken in Pyongyang and elsewhere to combat Ebola.
  • The UN’s public health body said on Wednesday that 9,936 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — the three countries at the epicentre of the world’s worst-ever Ebola epidemic — have contracted the disease. In total, 4,877 people have died.
  • The vaccine, developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, is one of two experimental Ebola vaccines identified by the WHO as having shown promising results when tested on monkeys.

BEIJING
North Korea will close its borders to foreign tourists on Friday due to Ebola fears, travel agencies said, as the number of people that have contracted the deadly virus nears 10,000 in West Africa.

Three travel agencies specialising in North Korean tours, two of them based in China, issued statements this informing clients that the country was closing itself to tourists until further notice because of the threat of the disease.

North Korean state news agency KCNA did not confirm the ban, but said “thorough preventive measures” were being taken in Pyongyang and elsewhere to combat Ebola.

“The virus has not entered the country as yet,” it added.

It was unclear whether the reported travel ban would also apply to business and official travellers.

But Nick Bonner, founder of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, said the company had been told that tourists would be barred from entry from Friday.

“We have just received news from our partners in Pyongyang that the country is not accepting any international tourists from tomorrow, effectively closing its borders due to the threat of the spread of the Ebola virus,” he said.

“It is presently unknown how long this closure will be in effect for,” he added, citing “the very changeable nature of DPRK policy”.

TOURISTS BARRED
Young Pioneer Tours, which is headquartered in the Chinese city of Xian, said in a statement that Pyongyang was barring tourists “regardless of where they have recently visited”.

A third company, London-based Juche Travel Services, also confirmed that it had received news of the ban via its North Korean partners.

But three Chinese travel agencies in the border city of Yanbian said they had received no such notice.

The KCNA statement said that North Korean officials were carrying out more thorough checks and quarantine procedures “at airfields, trading ports and border railway stations”.

The UN’s public health body said on Wednesday that 9,936 people in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone — the three countries at the epicentre of the world’s worst-ever Ebola epidemic — have contracted the disease. In total, 4,877 people have died.

Meanwhile, doses of the experimental rVSV vaccine against Ebola arrived at the Geneva University Hospital from Canada.

The WHO is to coordinate trials of the vaccine in Geneva alongside those already under way in Germany, Gabon and Kenya.

EBOLA VACCINES

The vaccine, developed at the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, is one of two experimental Ebola vaccines identified by the WHO as having shown promising results when tested on monkeys.

WHO assistant director general Marie-Paule Kieny said the goal was to be able to ship initial supplies to Africa by early 2015, though mass vaccination campaigns are not yet on the cards.

“There is a very strong movement now from governments of many countries to push as quickly as possible these vaccines into real-world use,” she said. A key aim is to help guard health workers against Ebola — some 240 have died so far as they strive to care for desperate patients.

At the same time, the American Institute of Health announced it they had begun a clinical trial of a vaccine trialling it on 39 people.

However, even if successful, the vaccine would not be available until next year.