Covid-19 in North Korea: six dead of “fever”, 187,000 people “isolated and treated”, according to Pyongyang – Le Monde

Kim Jong-un, visiting the epidemic prevention headquarters, May 12, 2022. Document provided by the government news agency KCNA. KCNA / REUTERS Six people who were victims of “fever” died in North Korea, including one who tested positive for Covid-19, state media KCNA announced on Friday May 13, the day after the revelation of the first official case of coronavirus in the country. “A fever whose cause could not be identified spread explosively throughout the country from the end of April”, and “six people died, one of them was tested positive to Omicron’s BA.2 sub-variant,” the official KCNA news agency reported. Some 187,800 feverish people are currently “isolated and treated”. More than 350,000 cases would have been recorded in the country, 18,000 for the single day of Thursday, May 12. Experts believe that if North Korea fails to curb the spread of the virus, there could be serious consequences for the country, due to the failing health system. Moreover, none of the 25 million population is vaccinated against the coronavirus, as Pyongyang has rejected vaccination offers from the World Health Organization (WHO), China and Russia. “Health crisis situation” The leader of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Kim Jong-un, criticized the “vulnerability of the epidemic prevention system”. He specified that the contaminations are concentrated, for the moment, in the region of the capital, Pyongyang, and its surroundings. On Thursday, Kim Jong-un chaired an emergency political bureau meeting on the epidemic situation and ordered containment measures to try to stem the spread of the virus. “This is the most important challenge and the most important task facing our party to quickly reverse this health crisis situation,” KCNA added. North Korea has long boasted of its ability to keep the virus at bay and had not reported a single confirmed case of Covid-19 to the WHO. The World with AFP