North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visits a pharmacy in Pyongyang
(Picture: AP)More than a million people are believed to have contracted Covid in North Korea as a huge wave of infection sweeps the country.
State officials said a total of 1,213,550 people had been struck down by a “fever” just four days after the country was plunged into a national lockdown by leader Kim Jong-un.
The North Korean population is particularly vulnerable to Covid as the Government has declined to administer a vaccine, rejecting supplies of the AstraZeneca jab from the international community as well as China’s Sinovac shots last year.
The country’s exact case numbers are unclear as it has limited testing capacity. Around 50 people have died, state officials said, but could not confirm whether these suspected cases had died of the virus.
Kim on Sunday told an emergency politburo meeting that drugs procured by the state were not reaching citizens “in a timely and accurate way”, state news agency KCNA said.
He ordered the immediately deployment of the “powerful forces” of the army’s medical corps to “stabilise the supply of medicines in Pyongyang City,” it added.
The dictator also criticised the “irresponsible” work attitude, organisation and execution by the cabinet and the public health sector.
“The spread of the malignant epidemic is [the greatest] turmoil to fall on our country since the founding,” he was quoted as saying on Saturday.
Last week, Pyongyang acknowledged an “explosive” Omicron outbreak in the capital after claiming for two years it had never recorded an official infection. Kim branded the cluster of cases a “severe national emergency” and instructed officials to “eliminate the root within the shortest period of time”.
Announcing a national lockdown, he urged citizens to “completely block the spread of the malicious virus by thoroughly blocking their areas in all cities and counties across the country”.
Meanwhile, South Korea’s president Yoon Suk-yeol said his country would provide medical and humanitarian aid despite rising tensions on the peninsula following several missile launches from the North in recent months.
"If North Korea responds (to our support), we will spare no medicines including Covid vaccines, medical equipment and health personnel," said Mr Yoon in a speech at the plenary session of the National Assembly.
Seoul's unification ministry, responsible for relations between the neighbours, said it would soon propose a plan of support to the North.
