Six people have died in an “explosive” spread of fever, North Korean state media reported, a day after admitting for the first time that a Covid outbreak had occurred.
There were 187,800 people treated in isolation after a fever of unknown origin spread to the country in late April, the official KCNA news agency reported.
About 350,000 people have shown signs of the fever, 162,200 of whom have been treated so far. At least six people who showed symptoms of fever have died, and one of those cases has been confirmed to be infected with a variant of the Omicron virus, KCNA said.
North Korean ruler Kim Jong Un visited the anti-virus command center on Tuesday, a day after declaring a “worst state of emergency” and ordering a national blockade.
Until then, North Korea had said it had not registered a single case of Covid since closing its borders at the start of the pandemic more than two years ago.
The discovery of the Omicron variant poses a potentially serious risk to North Korea, which has not vaccinated any of its 25 million people, according to experts, and whose poor health system would also struggle to cope with a major outbreak.
Sign up for the First Edition, our free daily newsletter – every weekday morning at 7am BST
So far, the country has avoided vaccines offered by the UN-backed Covax distribution program, presumably because the injections would require international monitoring.
Leif-Eric Izley, a professor at Ewha University in Seoul, said public recognition of the coronavirus regime meant “the public health situation must be serious.”
“This does not mean that North Korea will suddenly be open to humanitarian aid and take a more conciliatory line to Washington and Seoul,” he said.
Add Comment