Temperatures in North Korea’s northern regions have plunged to -30 degrees Celsius (-22 degrees Fahrenheit), and the number of people complaining of cold-like symptoms has spiked. People who are struggling to get by cannot afford medicine and have little choice but to suffer and endure when they are sick.
“The number of people suffering from colds has spiked as temperatures in Hyesan drop below -30,” a Daily NK source in Ryanggang province said recently. “As the cold spell continues and people lack kindling for heating, colds don’t go away. In fact, their symptoms worsen over time.”
According to the source, recent temperatures have remained below -30 in North Korea’s northern regions, endangering residents’ health. In particular, vulnerable groups facing financial distress are at greater risk.
“Wealthy people keep their homes warm with firewood or coal and quickly recover from colds by buying medicine or using IVs, but poorer people can only heat their homes once or twice a day,” the source said. “How can people who can barely afford firewood buy medicine that costs tens of thousands of won?”
Almost everyone in one neighborhood sick
The number of cold sufferers has spiked so sharply that in one neighborhood watch unit in Hyesan, almost everyone has come down with a cold since the start of January.
Major symptoms include high fevers, coughing, and sore throats—people usually buy tablets like paracetamol for fever and asthma medications such as salbutamol, as well as injections like ciprofloxacin.
However, a single tablet costs 1,500 to 2,000 North Korean won (roughly $0.20-$0.28), while an injection of ciprofloxacin costs 40,000 won ($5.50), quite a sum for poorer people. Even going to the hospital to get a diagnosis and prescription costs a fortune, so impoverished people have no choice but to endure their colds, the source said.
“People already know that socialist free medical care has vanished,” the source said. “However, penniless people cannot even go to the hospital because they not only charge for a diagnosis and prescription, but even charge market prices for medicine.”
People complain that they hope “winter passes quickly” and that they wish “there was no winter at all.”
“As the freezing temperatures continue, if you catch a cold, it doesn’t go away, and the symptoms gradually get worse,” the source said. “Everywhere, people say that in times such as these, they wish the state would provide medicine to the public for free, or at least at prices they could afford.”
“Some parents run around trying to buy medicine for their children, doing whatever they can to get money for it, even if they endure their own colds without medication,” he said bitterly. “It’s hard not to cry when you see it.”
