On December 12, 2018, Dong-A ST (Chairman Eom Dae-sig) announced that it had signed an agreement with the Eugene Bell Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides humanitarian medical assistance to North Korea, at the Foundation’s office located in Dongan-gu, Anyang-si, Gyeonggi-do on December 11 to sponsor the provision of anti-tuberculosis drugs to North Korea.

Officials including Chairman Eom Dae-sig of Dong-A ST and Director Stephen Linton (Lin Se-ban) of the Eugene Bell Foundation attended the signing ceremony. This sponsorship agreement is intended to fulfill Dong-A’s corporate social responsibility and support the treatment of patients with MDR-TB in North Korea.

Under the terms of this agreement, Dong-A ST will provide the Eugene Bell Foundation with the anti-tuberculosis drug ‘Closerin’ for the treatment of MDR-TB patients in North Korea.

The Eugene Bell Foundation is a non-profit organization that provides humanitarian medical assistance to North Korea, with a particular focus on eradicating tuberculosis in North Korea. Starting with the provision of food aid to North Koreans in 1995, the foundation shifted its focus to the eradication of tuberculosis in 1997, and has concentrated on the treatment of MDR-TB since 2008.

MDR-TB is a form of tuberculosis that has become resistant to conventional tuberculosis drugs. If left untreated, MDR-TB patients continue to infect the people around them, which can lead to death within an average of five years. According to the WHO Joint Report of North Korea Tuberculosis Control (2017), more than 8,000 new cases of MDR-TB are estimated to occur each year in North Korea.

An official of Dong-A ST said, “Many people suffer from tuberculosis in North Korea. Tuberculosis makes a patient’s daily life very difficult and even results in death if treated too late. I hope this anti-tuberculosis drug sponsorship will give hope to TB patients in North Korea.”