Epidemic in North Korea?

Several days ago, a well-informed contact asked me whether I had heard rumors of a new disease spreading rapidly in northeastern North Korea, in the vicinity of Camp 22.  I hadn’t.  The rumor — I emphasize it was unverified and described to me as such — was that this was a made-in-the-lab germ  that had spread from one of the concentration camps in the vicinity to the  population on the outside.  It all sounded a bit conspiratorial to me, until I read this from the Daily NK, which may be the only media source with multiple sources inside North Korea:

A number of sources in North Korea told the Daily NK on Wednesday about an epidemic spread along the northern border area of NK including Hyesan, Bochun and Baek-am counties, all in Ryanggang Province. The area was closed and quarantined.

An anonymous former defector in Seoul reported, based on a telephone conversation on Wednesday with her family living in Hyesan, because of a spread of scarlet fever, transportation around the region was interrupted.

Break out of scarlet fever in that area was, reportedly, the first time since 1945.

And “residents of Hyesan do not possess any medical knowledge about the disease,” the informant continued.

In response, says the Daily NK, the North Koreans closed the border, stopped issuing travel permits, and halted rail traffic in the region.  I’m not sure that the border closings would be noticeable amid a general tightening of Chinese border security now, but if this is true, and  if the outbreak crosses into China, the news would be impossible to contain.  It would also represent yet another reason for China to want to rid itself of Kim Jong Il’s regime.  It would also justify calls for the North Korean regime to admit World Health Organization personnel to identify and contain the outbreak (which the regime would never do, of course). 

Here is the wiki page on scarlet fever.

This differs from the rumor I heard in only one regard — I heard the name of another, much more dreaded  disease.   I emphasize:  this one needs more detail and more verification.