Engaging North Korea on Mutual Interests in Tuberculosis Control

Since the DPRK famines of the 1990s, rates of tuberculosis (TB), a disease that exploits malnutrition and other conditions that compromise natural immunity, have risen dramatically in North Korea and are now among the highest in the world outside of sub-Saharan Africa. Launched in 2008, a unique collaboration of US-based voluntary interests, including a major medical institution, a humanitarian NGO, and a non-profit sponsor, began working with the civilian DPRK Ministry of Public Health to fight TB, and especially drug-resistant TB, inside North Korea. Since then, the DPRK Tuberculosis Project has achieved critical public health objectives during a period otherwise marked by a profound deterioration of relations between the United States and North Korea.