North Korea has rejected COVAX’s offer to provide around 3 million doses of Sinovac COVID-19 vaccines, a World Health Organization (WHO) official confirmed to NK News on Wednesday.

“[The] DPRK has communicated to Gavi that it would be looking at future opportunities for COVID-19 vaccines through COVAX,” Edwin Salvador, the WHO representative to North Korea, told NK News in an email, without commenting on why Pyongyang is not interested in receiving the Sinovac doses.

Salvador previously told NK News in mid-August that COVAX had offered 2.97 million doses of Sinovac to North Korea via a “new funding opportunity” for all