by REERA YOO | @reeraboo
editor@charactermedia.com
North Korea said on Friday that it has developed a miracle drug that can prevent and cure not only MERS but also Ebola, SARS and AIDS, reports the Associated Press.
Needless to say, the isolated country’s claim has raised widespread skepticism, considering North Korea’s poor healthcare system and reputation for spinning bizarre tales (like the one about discovering unicorns).
On Friday, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported that the Pugang Pharmaceutical Company has developed Kumdang-2, a vaccine created from ginseng grown from fertilizer containing “rare-earth elements.” The media outlet added that the vaccine could easily treat “malicious virus infections like SARS, Ebola and MERS.”
“As a strong immune activator, the injection has been recognized to prevent different malignant epidemics,” Jon Sung-hun, the director of the pharmaceutical company, told KCNA.
North Korea touted the same golden concoction during the SARS outbreak in Asia in 2003 and the bird flu outbreaks between 2006 and 2013, according to Yonhap News Agency.
Although it has not submitted any medical proof to the other nations, Pugang Pharmaceutical claims that people injected with Kumdang-2 have not contracted any of the aforementioned viruses even after venturing into infected areas.
North Korea, however, has been highly sensitive to the outbreak of infectious diseases. Last year, it banned foreign tourists from entering the country for five months due to Ebola concerns.
Surprisingly, the hermit kingdom has not shut down its borders, even though South Korea continues to fight the outbreak of MERS, which has already killed 24 people and infected at least 166 people as of June 19.
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Featured image via Yonhap
