North Korea on Monday reported 8 new deaths apparently linked to covidfor which there are already 50 deaths since the first positive was confirmed last Thursday, and leader Kim Jong-un asked to improve the distribution of medicines in the face of the avalanche of cases.
(You might be interested in: North Korea: how is your health system doing to deal with covid-19?)
The country, which has not administered a single vaccine, yesterday detected some 392,920 potential casesthe KCNA agency reported this Monday, so there are already more than 1.21 million possible infections detected (there is hardly any capacity to test) since the omicron variant began to spread, apparently, at the end of April.
(You might be interested: North Korea confirms its first death from Covid)
Of those 1.21 million, more than 648,000 have recovered and just under 565,000 are under treatment, detailed KCNA, which also reported a meeting
of the politburo held the day before in Pyongyang and chaired by Kim Jong-un.
Kim mentioned that the emergency order to uninterruptedly release and supply state reserves of medicines to pharmacies is not yet being implemented, “severely criticized” the officials in charge of the operation, and charged the prosecution for not “exercising the legal supervision” of the aforementioned process.
The situation is worrying because of how contagious the detected omicron variant has proven to be and because the country, which ordered last week to confine “every city and county”, rejected in 2021 the donation of almost five million vaccines and not still has a national inoculation plan.
Pyongyang has not made any public calls for aid, including vaccines, although South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported, citing sources close to the matter, that North Korea had requested support from China through diplomatic channels.
In South Korea, where the government will propose talks to the regime this week to deal with sending humanitarian aid, the new president, Yoon Suk-yeol, insisted today that Seoul is willing to provide all kinds of support.
“If the North Korean authorities accept, we will spare no help neededsuch as medicines, including vaccines against covid, medical equipment and health personnel,” Yoon said during his first parliamentary appearance as head of government.
It is unknown if the regime, which has carried out a record number of missile tests this year and is preparing a new nuclear test, would accept help from the South at a time when inter-Korean dialogue is practically non-existent.
Sending humanitarian aid promises to be one of the topics that Yoon and US President Joe Biden will discuss when they meet in Seoul this coming Saturday.
INTERNATIONAL WRITING
*With information from Efe
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