Seoul, South Korea
Reuters
At least one person confirmed to have COVID-19 has died in North Korea and hundreds of thousands have shown fever symptoms, state media said on Friday, offering hints at the potentially dire scale of country’s first confirmed outbreak of the pandemic.
About 187,800 people are being treated in isolation after a fever of unidentified origin has “explosively spread nationwide” since late April, the official KCNA news agency reported.
People wearing protective face masks commute amid concerns over the new coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Pyongyang, North Korea, on 30th March, 2020, in this photo released by Kyodo. PICTURE: Kyodo/via Reuters/File.
Roughly 350,000 people have shown signs of that fever, including 18,000 who newly reported such symptoms on Thursday, KCNA said. About 162,200 have been treated, but it did not specify how many had tested positive for COVID-19.
At least six people who showed fever symptoms died, with one of those case confirmed to have contracted the Omicron variant of the virus, KCNA said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un visited the anti-virus command centre on Thursday to check the situation and responses after declaring a “gravest state of emergency” and ordering a national lockdown on Thursday.
North Korea has said the outbreak began in the capital of Pyongyang in April. State media did not elaborate on the cause of the outbreak, but the city hosted several massive public events on 15th and 25th April including a military parade and large gatherings where most people did not wear masks.
Kim “criticised that the simultaneous spread of fever with the capital area as a centre shows that there is a vulnerable point in the epidemic prevention system we have already established,” KCNA said.
Kim said actively isolating and treating people with fevers a top priority, while calling for scientific treatment methods and tactics “at a lightning tempo” and bolstering measures to supply medication.
In another dispatch, KCNA said health authorities were trying to organise testing and treatment systems and bolster disinfection work.
The rapid spread of the virus highlights the potential for a major crisis in a country that lacks medical resources, has refused international help with vaccinations and has kept its borders shut.
Analysts said the outbreak could threaten to deepen the isolated country’s already tough food situation this year, as the lockdown would hamper its “all-out fight” against drought and the mobilisation of labour.
North Korea had declined vaccine supplies from the COVAX global sharing programme and China, possibly leaving the vast majority of people in a relatively young society at higher risk of infection.
Kwon Young-se, South Korea’s new nominee to be the unification minister, responsible for inter-Korean ties, said at his confirmation hearing on Thursday that he was willing to push for humanitarian assistance for the North, including COVID treatment, syringes and other medical supplies.
A US State Department spokesperson said it had no plans to send vaccines to North Korea but supported international efforts to provide aid to vulnerable people there, urging Pyongyang to facilitate that work.
Meanwhile, North Korea fired three ballistic missiles towards the sea off its east coast on Thursday, South Korea and Japan said, in its latest tests aimed at advancing its weapons programmes, even as it reported a COVID-19 outbreak for the first time.
Three short-range ballistic missiles were fired at around 18:30 from the Sunan area of North Korea’s capital, Pyongyang, where an international airport is located and where it fired its largest intercontinental ballistic missile, the Hwasong-17, on 24th March, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said.
The missiles flew approximately 360 kilometres, reaching an altitude of 90 kilometre and a maximum velocity of Mach 5, the JCS said.
US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan and his South Korean counterpart Kim Sung-han spoke by phone and condemned the latest launch as a violation of UN bans, the White House said, but the US military said it did not pose an immediate threat to America or its allies.
– With DAVID BRUNNSTROM and RAMI AYYUB in Washington DC.
