North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said on Saturday that the spread of COVID-19 has thrown the country into “great turmoil” and called for an all-out fight to contain the pandemic, while a day between the people Earlier there were 21 new deaths. with fever.
After claiming no infections for more than two years since the start of the pandemic, North Korea this week made an unprecedented admission of its first Covid outbreak, but there was no sign that a rigorous testing or treatment campaign was underway. was going on.
According to experts, given North Korea’s limited testing capabilities, the numbers released probably represent a small fraction of total infections, which could have caused thousands of deaths in just one of the two countries without a COVID vaccination campaign.
The country’s ruling Workers’ Party met for an emergency meeting and heard reports of about 280,810 people being treated and 27 deaths since a fever of unknown origin began in late April, the KCNA news agency said.
State news agency KCNA quoted Kim as telling the meeting: “The spread of the deadly pandemic is a great turmoil in our country since its inception.”
“But if we do not lose focus in implementing the pandemic policy and maintain strong organizational power and control on the basis of one-minded unity of party and people and strengthen our pandemic fight, we can overcome the crisis. can do much more than do.”
State media did not specify whether the new deaths were due to COVID. KCNA said on Friday that one death has been confirmed from the Omicron version of the coronavirus.
The meeting heard a report from epidemic control officials that “in most cases, human casualties were due to negligence including drug overdose due to lack of knowledge of treatment methods”, KCNA said.
Since the end of April, 524,440 people have shown symptoms of fever, including 174,440 new cases on Friday, KCNA said. Around 243,630 have been treated but KCNA did not say how many people have been tested nor the total number of confirmed cases.
North Korea is testing about 1,400 people a week, according to Harvard Medical School’s Key Park, who has worked on health care projects in the country, which is not enough to survey hundreds of thousands of people with symptoms.
Leader Kim said the health crisis was caused by the incompetence and irresponsibility of party organizations in the anti-epidemic response, but the transmission was not uncontrollable and the country should have confidence in its fight to recover from the crisis in the shortest possible period, KCNA said. he said .
He offered to play his part by donating medical supplies, which were kept in his home, to be used by families who are facing particular hardship, KCNA said.
Kim also said that health officials should learn from the experience of other advanced countries, including China’s achievements in fighting the pandemic, KCNA said.