Kim Jong Un at a state emergency epidemic prevention center | Image: KCTV (May 13, 2022)
South Korea has offered to help procure vaccines and other medical supplies after North Korea revealed hundreds of thousands of its people are battling fever symptoms amid a COVID-19 outbreak in Pyongyang.
North Korean state media reported Friday morning that at least one North Korean died after testing positive for the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron, while another 187,800 are under quarantine due to fever. An unidentified fever spread “explosively” across the country from late April, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said Friday, affecting 350,000 North Koreans so far.
A spokesperson for South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol
South Korea has offered to help procure vaccines and other medical supplies after North Korea revealed hundreds of thousands of its people are battling fever symptoms amid a COVID-19 outbreak in Pyongyang.
North Korean state media reported Friday morning that at least one North Korean died after testing positive for the BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron, while another 187,800 are under quarantine due to fever. An unidentified fever spread “explosively” across the country from late April, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA)said Friday, affecting 350,000 North Koreans so far.
Jeongmin Kim is a Lead Correspondent at NK News, based in Seoul. Kim covers inter-Korean and DPRK-related foreign, defense and humanitarian affairs, and has covered the 2022 ROK Presidential election on the ground. Prior to joining NK News, she worked for the CSIS Korea Chair in Washington D.C. and Reuters news agency's Seoul bureau. Follow her on Twitter @jeongminnkim