In December Juche 34 (1945), a few months after the country’s liberation from the Japanese military occupation, President Kim Il Sung called an official in the sector of public health to his office.
He told the official that many people suffering diarrhea appeared in Pyongyang recently, asking him the reason of its uninterrupted spread despite of cold weather.
The official answered that different diseases including diarrhea didn’t stop spreading in Pyongyang due to the bad quality of drinking water.
Noting that Pyongyang was famous for its beautiful mountains and clean water and scenic beauty from olden times, Kim Il Sung said that vicious Japanese colonial rule had destroyed even the natural environment of the city severely.
He stressed that taking epidemic prevention measures thoroughly in the liberated country was a primary task in the struggle to get rid of remnants of the colonial rule and establish democratic public health system for the people.
He continued that we should intensify anti-epidemic work to prevent epidemic diseases, and that before anything else, an epidemic prevention system involving all the people and relevant anti-epidemic institutions should be set up, pointing out the measures to this end.
Later, an institute specializing in preventing epidemic diseases was set up for the first time under the difficult conditions after the country’s liberation.
