North Korea has recently opened a hospital in Tanzania and since been striving to boost earnings apparently to make up for its foreign income squeezed by international sanctions, a media report said Thursday.

Maibong Sukidor Medical, a Korean traditional medical center, opened near the East African country's former capital of Dar es Salaam in early February, the Washington-based Radio Free Asia said.

A copy of the center's business cards showed a doctor named Pak Jae-hong serves as the managing director of the establishment. A small billboard was also set up on a road leading to the medical center, with the description "Korean dispensary," according to the RFA.

The radio report quoted a source saying that two people, one male doctor and one female nurse, were working there.

The hospital is making utmost efforts to lure patients with its newspaper advertisements that promise to cure every kind of terminal disease, the report said.

But in reality, the North Korea hospital is prescribing sham medicine and patients who have visited the center have complained about side effects, the report said, adding that it is causing a social problem in Tanzania.

Amid such issues, Tanzania's health authorities have issued an order for illegal medical practices to cease operations, it said.

A total of 13 North Korean hospitals are in operation in the East African country after the first one opened in 1991, the report also said.

The international community, led by the United Nations Security Council, adopted a series of economic sanctions on the communist country after its nuclear test and a long-range rocket launch earlier this year, which were banned under UNSC resolutions on Pyongyang. (Yonhap)