North Korea cancels marathon over virus: travel firm

North Korea has canceled the Pyongyang Marathon -- its biggest tourist money-spinner of the year -- because of the novel coronavirus outbreak, a leading tour company said Friday. Beijing-based Young Pioneer Tours, which specialises in budget trips to the isolated country, said on its website it had "received confirmation from our travel partners" that the April event had been cancelled.

The move was "due to the current borders of the DPRK (North Korea) being closed to prevent the spread of the COVID-19 virus", it added. The annual marathon is held in April as part of the anniversary commemorations for founder Kim Il Sung's birth in 1912 and attracts curious foreigners eager to run through the streets of the tightly controlled city.

Almost 1,000 Westerners took part last year, according to organizers, paying entry fees of up to USD 150 to do so. North Korea has put itself into self-imposed isolation to protect itself from the outbreak raging in neighboring China, which has infected more than 75,000 people and killed over 2,200.

Pyongyang has suspended flights and train services, banned tourists, and imposed 30 days of quarantine on resident foreigners. North Korea is subject to multiple international sanctions over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs and its medical infrastructure is weak, with chronic shortages of medicines and equipment.

As a result an outbreak would wreak havoc, analysts say. It has taken similar measures before: it banned tourists for more than four months from October 2014 to keep out the Ebola virus, even though no cases had been reported in Asia.

North Korea clamped down for six months during the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2002-03, which killed nearly 650 people across mainland China and Hong Kong. 

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)