North Korea has asked South Korea to send quarantine equipment and protective masks amid the rapidly expanding outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in the South.
    
A Unification Ministry official said Thursday that the North made the request to South Korea’s Gaeseong Industrial District Management Committee, asking for heat detectors that will be used to check if South Korean workers travelling to the inter-Korean joint venture have been infected with the virus.
   
The government said that it will accept the North’s demand, noting the precedent of installing Ebola detection devices at the factory park last November at Pyongyang’s request.
    
The ministry official explained that the three heat detectors returned by North Korea last year are being kept at the Gaeseong Industrial District Foundation, and they will soon be reinstalled at the North’s immigration office.
    
The official said that the North has also asked South Korean companies operating at the industrial complex to provide masks to their workers, adding that his ministry will make a decision after having discussions with the firms.
    
The Unification Ministry said that despite the spread of the disease in the South, North Korea has not limited South Koreans’ access to the factory park.