Currently, over one million people are suffering from tuberculosis in Korea, which means that one out of every 33 persons is a tuberculosis patient. A dreadful communicable disease that poses a grim menace to our public health, tuberculosis is blamed for an annual economic loss of 43,400 million won in our country. Hitherto, the fund has been raised through the sales of Christmas seals by the Korean National Tuberculosis Association, a non-governmental organization established to assist in the government`s projects designed to combat the disease. In order to improve the method of fund-raising, however, the government decided to issue this semipostal stamp to be sold through the post offices across the country.

This stamp, to be issued by the Ministry of Communications, will thus help finance the nation`s tuberculosis control programs which are vital to the protection of our people from the disease and treatment of the patients.