Photo: The Canadian Press
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visits the state headquarters for the prevention of emergency epidemics on Thursday.
North Korea said on Friday that six people had died and 350,000 had been treated for a fever that had spread “explosively” across the nation, a day after the first confirmation of a COVID-19 outbreak.
The true scale is unclear, but the major outbreak of COVID-19 could be devastating in a country with a disrupted health system and an unvaccinated, malnourished population. North Korea, which may not have enough tests for COVID-19 and other medical equipment, said it did not know the cause of the mass fever.
North Korea’s official central news agency said of the 350,000 people who had developed a fever since late April, 162,200 had recovered. It says 18,000 people were recently diagnosed with symptoms of fever on Thursday alone, and 187,800 people were isolated for treatment.
One in six deaths has been confirmed to be infected with the omicron variant, the KCNA said, but it is unclear how many of the common diseases are COVID-19.
North Korea imposed a nationwide blockade on Thursday after recognizing the outbreak of COVID-19 for the first time in the pandemic. These reports say tests from an unspecified number of people have tested positive for the omicron variant.
The spread of the virus may be accelerated by a massive military parade in Pyongyang on April 25, where North Korean leader Kim Jong Un took center stage and showed the most powerful missiles in his military nuclear program to tens of thousands.
Cheong Seong-Chang, an analyst at South Korea’s Sejong Institute, said the rate of the fever’s spread suggests that the crisis could last for months and possibly until 2023, causing major disruption in the ill-equipped country.
Some experts say the North’s initial announcement said it was ready to receive foreign aid. He had previously avoided vaccines offered by the UN-backed COVAX distribution program, presumably because they have international monitoring requirements.
The South Korean Unification Ministry, which deals with inter-Korean issues, said the South was ready to provide medical and other assistance to North Korea on humanitarian grounds.
KCNA said Kim was informed of the fever when he visited the Emergency Prevention Headquarters on Thursday and criticized officials for failing to prevent a “vulnerability in the epidemic prevention system”.
He said the spread of the fever is concentrated around the capital Pyongyang and nearby areas and stressed the importance of isolating all work, production and housing units from each other, while providing residents with all the amenities during the blockade.
“The most important challenge and ultimate task for our party is to reverse the immediate public health crisis at an early stage, restore the stability of epidemic prevention and protect the health and well-being of our people,” Kim was quoted as saying by KCNA.
North Korea’s claim of a perfect record in preserving the virus for two and a half years was widely questioned. But South Korean officials say North Korea has probably avoided a major epidemic so far, in part because it has imposed tight virus controls since the pandemic began.
Describing its anti-coronavirus campaign as a matter of “national existence”, North Korea has severely restricted cross-border traffic and trade and is even believed to have ordered troops to fire when they see any intruders crossing its borders.
Border closures have further damaged the economy, which has been damaged by decades of mismanagement and crippling US-led sanctions over its nuclear weapons and missile program, pushing Kim to perhaps the most difficult moment of his rule since taking office in 2011. .
Hours after confirming the outbreak on Thursday, North Korea fired three short-range ballistic missiles at sea, said South Korea and Japan, which is likely a show of force after Kim publicly acknowledged the outbreak. This was the 16th round of rocket launches from the North this year.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the United States supports international aid efforts but has no plans to share vaccine supplies with the North.
“We continue to support international efforts to provide critical humanitarian assistance to the most vulnerable North Koreans, and this is, of course, the wider part of the DPRK, which continues to exploit its own citizens by not accepting this type of assistance.” Psaki said in Washington on Thursday, referring to North Korea with its official name, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.
“It’s not just vaccines. It is also a set of humanitarian aid that can help the people and the country a lot, and instead they are diverting resources to build their illegal nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
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