Kim calls for quick action to curb virus

PYONGYANG－Kim Jong-un, top leader of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, on Thursday called for quick action to contain the spread of COVID-19, when visiting the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters, the official Korean Central News Agency reported.

Kim examined the epidemic prevention situation "after the state epidemic prevention work was switched over to the maximum emergency epidemic prevention system", and learned about the nationwide spread of COVID-19, said the report.

A fever whose cause couldn't be identified explosively spread nationwide from late April, and more than 350,000 people got fever "in a short span of time" and at least 162,200 of them recovered completely.

On Thursday alone, some 18,000 people were found to have fever nationwide. So far, up to 187,800 people are being isolated and treated, with six dead (one of them tested positive for the BA.2 subvariant of Omicron), the report said.

"The simultaneous spread of fever with the capital area as a center shows that there is a vulnerable point in the epidemic prevention system we have already established," Kim was quoted as saying.

"It is the most important challenge and supreme tasks facing our party to reverse the immediate public health crisis situation at an early date, restore the stability of epidemic prevention and protect the health and well-being of our people," he said.

The official news agency reported Thursday that samples taken from patients with fever in Pyongyang on Sunday were "consistent with" the virus' highly transmissible Omicron variant.

The DPRK has taken strict measures to ward off the virus by closing its borders soon after the outbreak of the pandemic, and had not confirmed a single case until Thursday.

The Republic of Korea plans to provide COVID-19 vaccines and other medical supplies to the DPRK, President Yoon Suk-yeol's office said on Friday.

"We will discuss detailed plans for assistance with North Korea," Yoon's spokesperson said in a statement.

Cha Duck-chul, acting spokesperson of the ROK's Unification Ministry, was quoted by Yonhap News Agency on Friday as saying that "we are closely watching the situation in North Korea (DPRK)".

"Our government's stance is that assistance to North Koreans and inter-Korean cooperation in the quarantine and healthcare sectors can be carried out at any time from a humanitarian perspective," he said.

But the government has not taken any concrete steps to offer coronavirus-related aid, he added.

Xinhua - Agencies