The United Nations panel overseeing sanctions enforcement in North Korea will allow Swiss Humanitarian Aid, a foreign aid organization operated by the Swiss government, to bypass sanctions and bring supplies into the DPRK to “support ongoing measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19,” a note posted to a UN website said on Friday.

The sanctions exemptions are the fourth granted to a humanitarian organization for work related to the coronavirus pandemic.

According to the UN, Swiss Humanitarian Aid was granted permission to send disinfection kits to the DPRK, to be used in 30 hospitals across the country, along with 2,000 sets of personal protective equipment (PPE) used for medical work.

The disinfection kits include machines that can produce sodium-based disinfectants, gas-powered generators, batteries, spray pumps, plastic buckets, and salt, among other items, according to an annex attached to the note.

Each PPE kit contains one N95 face mask, 100 milliliters of alcohol-based “hand rub,” one single-use gown, one surgical mask, one clear plastic face shield, one pair of goggles, and one pair of cleaning gloves.

The UN notice was dated March 12, and the initial request for a sanctions exemption was made in a letter dated March 5, indicating a one-week turnaround.

The new sanctions exemption comes even as North Korea continues to claim it has no infections of the highly contagious virus within its borders.

Last week, the DPRK foreign ministry even described the country as a “clean land” — a boast that many experts and officials say simply cannot be true.

On Friday, South Korea’s Prime Minister Chung Sye-kyun said the North’s coronavirus situation is “probably not good,” while U.S. President Trump asserted earlier in the week, without elaborating, that North Korea “is going through something.”

Earlier this month, the top American military commander in South Korea, General Robert Abrams, said he was “fairly certain” the DPRK has cases of the virus.

None of them, however, have been able to prove it — at least publicly — even if the North’s claims seem to defy logic and the odds.

The DPRK is known to have one of the world’s least-prepared public health systems for dealing with an infectious disease outbreak. One major study last year ranked it last among all nations in that category.

The North also borders China and South Korea, which have had some of the highest levels of COVID-19 infections in the world, though Pyongyang began shutting down its borders in late January, ostensibly to help block the coronavirus from entering the country from abroad.

According to the UN document posted online, Swiss Humanitarian Aid is planning to bring its medical supplies to hospitals in eight provinces and the capital city of Pyongyang. None are listed as going to the DPRK’s Chagang Province.

Among the provinces set to receive aid, South Pyongan has the highest number of hospitals listed with eight, followed by North Pyongan and North Hwanghae with five, and South Hwanghae with four.

It is unclear why Swiss Humanitarian Aid chose to distribute its resources throughout the country in this way. The organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.

The sanctions exemption for Swiss Humanitarian Aid also comes just one day after North Korea signed a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres calling for the “immediate lifting” of “coercive measures” — sanctions — that hamper efforts to fight the coronavirus.

And earlier in the week, the UN’s top human rights official, Michelle Bachelet, said sanctions have “impeded” the ability of North Korea and other countries to stop the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

North Korea is subject to a wide range of sanctions as punishment for its nuclear weapons program.

They include a ban on the import of metal goods, which blocks countries from sending metal medical equipment into the North without special permission from the UN.

It is unclear if the UN’s 1718 Committee, which oversees sanctions enforcement and decides whether to grant exemptions to aid groups, has rejected any requests so far related to COVID-19 in North Korea, however.

The committee did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

And even after the UN grants a sanctions exemption for help with the pandemic, it does not necessarily mean Pyongyang will allow the supplies to come in.

Another aid group, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) — also known as Doctors Without Borders — was granted a UN sanctions exemption to send PPE and diagnostic equipment to the North in late February, but a representative from MSF told NK News on Thursday that its cargo remains in the border city of Dandong, China.

A statement from UNICEF sent on Friday said that PPE designated for North Korea was “in the pipeline.” A spokesperson from the group told NK News that “some of the supplies” have made it into the country already.