North Korean authorities are well-aware of the cluster infections, they are neither providing medicine nor are they preparing to bring the infected laborers back home.
“In the past, the laborers were returned home if it was a severe case but now that the borders are closed this is impossible,” said the source. “TB is a disease that you can recover from if treated promptly, but since there is no medicine is available to them more and more workers are dying.”
The so-called "loyalty fund" is a demand – which they're in no position to deny – that the wretched workers send even more of their meagre wages to the North Korean government, to demonstrate their concern for "the difficult circumstances the country faces”.
As we heard a few weeks ago, the British government, along with many others, has sourced PPE [personal protective equipment] from these factories in China, where hundreds of North Korean women have been working in conditions of modern slavery and are now, it seems, dying from TB. Ooh the irony…
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