About 187,800 people have been “isolated and treated” on Friday due to the “explosive” fever that has spread nationwide since late April, North Korean state media said.
This is the day after Pyongyang confirmed the first official case of COVID-19 and moved to the “largest emergency epidemic prevention system”.
North Korea’s Official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) report Six deaths due to fever “could not identify cause”. This includes the death of one person who was positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant.
According to the news agency, more than 350,000 people were infected with fever “in a short period of time”, of which 162,000 were fully recovered. As of Thursday, approximately 18,000 people have been identified as having fever symptoms.
KCNA said North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the state’s emergency epidemic prevention headquarters on Thursday to blame authorities for the spread of fever because of “vulnerabilities in the epidemic prevention system.”
Kim urged residents to isolate all work, production, and housing units while providing equipment to control the spread of the “malicious virus.”
“Early reversing the situation of the immediate public health crisis is the most important and highest challenge facing our party,” Kim said by KCNA.
The KCNA said Thursday that many people in Pyongyang were infected with the Omicron variant, but did not provide a certain number of people who were positive or tested for possible sources of infection. Samples of infected individuals were collected on May 8.
Kim ordered a national blockade to prevent the spread of the highly contagious virus and vowed to eradicate the outbreak. He also added that emergency reserve medications would also be mobilized.
The confirmed infectious disease of the hermit nation takes more than two years to the COVID-19 pandemic. Pyongyang claims to have kept the virus away, despite its rapid spread around the world.
North Korea was one of the first countries to close its borders and impose a strict travel ban, despite reporting zero cases of COVID-19 at the time, and this claim is widely questioned by the international community. It was seen.
According to the latest data from the World Health Organization, 64,207 North Koreans have been tested for COVID-19, and as of March 31, all tests were found to be negative.
However, given that North Korea refused to ship vaccines from the COVAX Global COVID-19 Vaccine Sharing Program and Sinovac Biotech vaccines from China, how many of North Korea’s 26 million people were vaccinated? Is unknown. International surveillance.
Katabella Roberts and Reuters contributed to this report.
follow
Aldgra Fredly is a Malaysia-based freelance writer featuring the Epoch Times Asia Pacific News.