North Korea on Friday announced its first confirmed death from Covid19 and said 187,000 people with fevers were “isolated and treated” with fevers following the nationwide spread of the country’s first coronavirus outbreak since the pandemic began.
The isolated communist country, which has nuclear weapons, confirmed its first outbreak of Covid19 on Thursday (12). and announced the implementation of a “maximum emergency epidemic prevention system” after several fever patients in Pyongyang tested positive for the Omicron variant.
“A fever, the cause of which has not been identified, has exploded across the country since late April,” official KCNA news agency reported. “Up to 187,800 people are isolated and being treated,” he added.
The agency also reported that six of those patients died, “one of them after testing positive for Ômicron’s BA.2 subvariant,” a highly contagious strain of the coronavirus.
Since late April, “more than 350,000 people have developed fevers in a short period of time and at least 162,200 have fully recovered,” KCNA said.
“On May 12 alone, nearly 18,000 people fell ill with a fever and 187,800 are in isolation and receiving treatment,” the agency added.
With 25 million people unvaccinated against the coronavirus and poor health infrastructure, North Korea could suffer in the face of a larger outbreak of the epidemic, experts say.
Leader Kim Jongun held an emergency meeting with his political cabinet on Thursday and ordered nationwide lockdowns to curb the spread of the disease.
On Friday, KCNA said Kim visited the Epidemic Prevention Emergency Department offices. “It is the most important challenge and our party’s greatest task is to quickly reverse the public health crisis,” he said.
North Korea is likely to face “great chaos” from the rapid spread of the Omicron variant, said Cheong Seongchang of the Sejong Institute of South Korea.
“If the number of Omicron deaths increases, Pyongyang may have to ask China for help,” he added.
Beijing, North Korea’s only major ally and benefactor, expressed its willingness to help its neighbor on Thursday.
But China, the only major economy in the world to maintain a restrictive “zeroCovid” approach, is struggling with multiple outbreaks of omicron on its lawn, some in major cities like Shanghai, which have been under strict lockdowns for weeks.
North Korea previously rejected offers of antiCovid vaccines from the WHO (World Health Organization), China and Russia.
In South Korea, the new government of President Yoon Sukyeol on Friday presented an offer to send vaccines to North Korea, but acknowledged the issue had not been discussed with Pyongyang.
The impoverished nation had imposed a strict foreign blockade since early 2020, bringing its economy and trade to a halt.
Around him, countries like South Korea and China are facing or have faced major outbreaks of Covid19 caused by the Ômicron variant.
According to analysts, China’s experience shows that lockdowns aren’t that useful in the face of Omicron, but without vaccines and antiviral treatments, Pyongyang doesn’t have many options.
Hours after announcing its first Covid outbreak, the communist regime fired three ballistic missiles from the Sunan area near the capital in the country’s 16th weapons test this year.