SEOUL—South Korea said it would offer vaccines to help with a nationwide outbreak of Covid-19 in unvaccinated North Korea, the first major outreach to Pyongyang by President Yoon Suk-yeol since taking office this week.
North Korea reported its first confirmed death from Covid-19 on Friday, after saying that there had been no cases for more than two years. More than 350,000 people contracted a fever that state media said “explosively spread nationwide” from late April, and at least one of six people who died tested positive for the BA.2 Omicron variant of the virus.
Mr. Yoon said Seoul would offer medical aid to North Korea, including vaccines. Pyongyang hasn’t requested help, but South Korea will consult with the North about plans to send support, a presidential spokeswoman said.
North Korea had no immediate response, but it has previously rejected millions of vaccines offered by the Covax initiative, a program financed mostly by Western governments to help lower-income countries with inoculations. Those doses included vaccines from
AstraZeneca
PLC and China’s Sinovac.
Some analysts say that North Korea could be hesitant to accept vaccines from other countries because of any international monitoring requirements attached to them. North Korean authorities have long been wary of foreign observers and aid workers operating in the country because of concerns they might weaken the government’s control over the population.
However, North Korean officials have privately shown an interest in mRNA vaccines, according to a March report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. South Korea’s supplies include mRNA vaccines, but the government said it didn’t have an estimate on the doses it could provide North Korea.
There would also be logistical challenges. Pyongyang lacks the extreme cold storage systems that are required for mRNA vaccines from
Pfizer Inc.
and
Moderna Inc.
Without vaccines, North Korea may be facing one of its worst health crises in recent years. Widespread malnourishment and a fractured healthcare system mean the country is particularly vulnerable to a respiratory epidemic.
North Korea ranked 193rd out of 195 countries in terms of its ability to manage a healthcare crisis, according to the 2021 Global Health Security Index, a project involving the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. It cited weaknesses in areas such as real-time surveillance of disease and healthcare access.
Access to complex health services is very limited in rural areas, and North Korea faces limitations in delivering health services due to fuel shortages that have intensified under international sanctions. As of 2019, North Korea had just 12 blood centers throughout the country, according to the World Health Organization.
More than 10 million North Koreans, or around 42% of the population, were undernourished from 2018 to 2020, according to the United Nations.
North Korea has responded to previous pandemics by shutting its borders and further isolating itself. In 2003, when severe acute respiratory syndrome was circulating in Asia, North Korea restricted travel and implemented strict quarantine procedures. The country didn’t report any cases. North Korea has described its current anti-Covid campaign as a matter of national survival.
Health experts warn that given North Korea’s limited testing capabilities, the figures released by state media probably represent just a fraction of infections, and there could be a large number of deaths because the population remains unvaccinated. North Korea and Eritrea are the only two countries that haven’t distributed vaccines to their populations, according to the WHO.
Leader
Kim Jong Un
has been candid about his worsening economy and food shortages in recent years, but he had expressed confidence in North Korea’s pandemic response. He wasn’t seen wearing a face mask in public until a recent ruling-party meeting where he discussed the Covid infections.
Mr. Kim visited the state emergency epidemic prevention headquarters on Thursday and ordered the lockdown of cities and counties to curb the spread of the virus. North Korea said the first infection was found in the capital Pyongyang.
State media didn’t elaborate on the cause of the outbreak, but some North Korea watchers say a recent military parade, where most people didn’t wear masks, may have caused infections to balloon. Mr. Kim ordered officials to actively isolate and treat people with fevers, while calling for scientific treatment methods.
—Alastair Gale contributed to this article.
Write to Dasl Yoon at [email protected]
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