The government is aiming to send the flu medicine Tamiflu to North Korea as early as this week as part of an inter-Korean cooperation project on influenza prevention.

Unification Ministry Spokesman Baik Tae-hyun said in a news briefing on Monday that the two Koreas are currently negotiating ways to cover costs on providing the medicine from the inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Fund. 

Such costs are estimated around billions of won and the medicine is likely to be transported by land. 

A number of government sources said the volume of medicine that will be sent this time is likely to be smaller than the amount sent back in 2009 for some 500-thousand people. 

Back in 2009, the Lee Myung-bak administration sent Tamiflu for 400-thousand people and Relenza for 100-thousand people via an overland route.