Gyeonggi Province has delivered a second batch of antimalarial medicine and mosquito nets for pregnant women to North Korea’s border city of Gaeseong via an overland route.

The Friday delivery of the aid, valued at around 160 million won, follows the province’s provision of the antimalarial supplies to the North in August as part of the efforts to prevent the spread of the disease.

According to Gyeonggi, the number of malaria patients in the province slid nearly 52 percent to 490 in 2008 from one-thousand-seven in 2007 following the launch of a joint North Korea-Gyeonggi Province project to prevent the spread of the disease.

It added that the number of malaria patients in regions near the North’s Gaeseong had also decreased by similar levels.