The World Health Organization (WHO) plans to send hundreds of oxygen treatment units to North Korea, a sign that suggests severe COVID-19 cases may be rising in the country, according to an expert.

The WHO requested the shipment on April 25, just 11 days before Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus announced that COVID-19 is no longer a global health emergency. 

Oxygen concentrators are necessary “to treat severe and critical cases of COVID-19 in Intensive Care Units in the health facilities,” a letter dated May 2 and posted on the UNSC website Friday shows.  

And while a WHO spokesperson told NK Newsthat