Kim Jong-Un said in August that the country had defeated the epidemic. The statistics put forward by Pyongyang, which has one of the worst health systems in the world, have long been challenged.
Pyongyang finally converted to vaccination. North Korea will begin to vaccinate its population against the COVID-19 around November, state media announced on Friday. This is the first official announcement of a vaccination program in the country since the start of the pandemic.
The report of the official KCNA agency does not specify the origin of the vaccines. Last year, the regime rejected the deliveries of Astrazeneca vaccines from which it was to benefit within the framework of the COVAX program of the World Health Organization (WHO), due to concerns about side effects, according to a group South Korean. The specialized site NK News, based in Seoul, said that Pyongyang may have already received vaccines from its main ally, China.
North Korea, impoverished and isolated since the start of the pandemic, confirmed a propagation of the omicron variant in the capital Pyongyang about four months ago. “In addition to the administration responsible for the vaccine, we must recommend that all citizens wear a mask from November to protect their own health,” said manager Kim Jong-un, according to the official agency Korean Central News Agency Agency (KCNA) by Pyongyang. The country’s health experts believe that the levels of antibodies acquired during the COVID wave confirmed in May will decrease by October, added the manager.
“fever” rather than “covid”
In August, Kim Jong-Un proclaimed the victory over the coronavirus and ordered the lifting of the “maximum emergency prevention system of the country”, the officially declared cases having fallen to zero. In cases, North Korea speaks of “patients with fever” rather than “patients with covid”, apparently due to a lack of test capacity. According to state media, the country has recorded nearly 4.8 million infections and only 74 deaths among its 26 million inhabitants, an official mortality rate of 0.002 %.
Experts, including the World Health Organization, have long been questioning Pyongyang statistics on COVVID, as well as its assertions that the epidemic is controlled. North Korea has one of the worst health systems in the world, with poorly equipped hospitals, few intensive care units and no drug for the treatment of COVVID, according to experts.