North Korea has confirmed six deaths

North Korea has confirmed its first Covid-19 fatality amid a “explosive” fever epidemic, state media said on Friday, one day after the dictatorship disclosed for the first time that it was dealing with a coronavirus outbreak.

According to the official KCNA news agency, six people died, and one of them tested positive for the highly transmissible Omicron form.

It stated 187,800 people had been “separated and treated” as a fever of unknown origin had spread across the country since late April. According to KCNA, around 350,000 individuals have displayed indications of fever, including 18,000 who reported such symptoms on Tuesday alone, with 162,200 of them treated thus far. The number of people who tested positive for Covid-19 was not specified by the news agency.

North Korea’s first Covid-19 fatality was confirmed after the authorities declared “extreme emergency measures” to combat an epidemic in the capital, Pyongyang.

Experts estimate that none – or very few – of the country’s 26 million people have been immunised, and there are growing worries that a large epidemic may swiftly overwhelm the country’s under-resourced health systems.

North Korea has so far rejected offers of Covid vaccinations from China and Russia, as well as through the World Health Organization’s Covax programme, ostensibly because providing the vaccines would need outside supervision.

According to Zhao Lijian, a spokeswoman for China’s foreign ministry, Beijing has offered North Korea assistance in dealing with the epidemic.

Human Rights Watch senior Korea researcher Lina Yoon called the regime’s acknowledgment that the virus was spreading “very worrying.”

“The majority of North Koreans are chronically malnourished and unvaccinated, there are few medications remaining in the nation, and the health infrastructure is incapable of dealing with this pandemic,” Yoon added. “The international community should deliver Covid-19 anti-viral drugs, as well as vaccinations and the essential equipment for vaccine preservation, including as refrigerators, generators, and gasoline.”

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un declared a nationwide state of emergency on Thursday, calling the outbreak the “gravest national disaster.”

However, it was unclear how severely the regulations were applied. An Associated Press photographer on the South Korean side of the border saw scores of people working in fields or walking on pathways in a North Korean border town, implying that the lockdown does not force people to stay at home or exempts farm labourers.

Kim, who had been pictured briefly wearing a mask on Thursday, visited the state emergency epidemic prevention centre on Friday and “learned about the countrywide spread of Covid-19,” according to KCNA.

“It is the most significant challenge and greatest job confronting our party at this time to reverse the imminent public health crisis scenario,” it stated.

North Korea has asserted that it had not registered a single incidence of Covid since closing its borders at the outset of the outbreak more than two years ago. This action halted commerce with China, further harming an economy already ravaged by natural disasters and UN sanctions imposed in response to its nuclear and missile testing.

While some analysts believe North Korea’s public acknowledgement of Covid cases and deaths may signal it is seeking outside assistance, the country defied UN sanctions on Friday by launching what looked to be three ballistic missiles into the sea off its east coast.

Professor Leif-Eric Easley of Ewha University in Seoul stated the regime’s public acknowledgement of coronavirus infections indicated that “the public health situation must be dire.”

“This does not imply North Korea will suddenly be open to humanitarian aid and take a more conciliatory position toward Washington and Seoul,” he stressed.

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