The number of patients infected with malaria in North Korea dropped for the fourth consecutive year in 2016 due to a UN body's efforts to eradicate the disease there, Voice of America reported Tuesday.
Citing a report by the World Health Organization, VOA's Korean Service said the number of North Korean people contracting the disease in the reported year was tallied at 4,890, down from 7,010 in 2015, 10,535 in 2014, 14,407 in 2013 and 21,850 in 2015.
In the 2010-2012 period, the number of North Korean malaria patients showed an uptrend, the report said.
This 2015 file photo, released by North Korea`s official Korean Central News Agency, shows North Korean officials attending an event in Pyongyang to mark World Malaria Day. (Yonhap)
North Korea had seen the contagious disease vanish in the 1970s before 2,000 people got infected with it in 1998.
Under the financial donations from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria, the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund has been providing mosquito nets, insecticides, and preventive medicines and remedies for malaria for North Korean residents. (Yonhap)
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