Six deaths from the coronavirus and more than 180,000 have been isolated in North Korea, the country that has not applied a vaccine.

North Korea, a country that has not provided a vaccine against the coronavirus, reported on Thursday that six people died due to disease and thousands will be infected a day after the regime reports the detection of its first cases since the pandemic began.

The KCNA agency reported that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un visited the national epidemic emergency center on Thursday and said that “since the end of April, a fever of unknown origin has spread across the country, which resulted in some 350,000 cases of fever in a short timeof which about 162,200 were successfully treated.

Kim added that the previous day, 18,000 new cases of these fevers were detected and “at the moment 187,000 people were quarantined and treated and six died.

North Korea has identified the first cases of coronavirus in the country after testing a group of people in Pyongyang, where it was identified as highly contagious. BA.2 omicron and variant and that the authorities have mandated a “maximum health emergency”.

Kim himself urged at a politburo meeting “all cities and counties in the country to completely lock their places.”

The situation is troubling due to how contagious the identified variant is and the fact that the country, isolated from the outside since 2020he has denied the donation of nearly five million doses of vaccines through the COVAX mechanism, it has not yet placed even one perforation and there is no national plan of inoculation yet.

Here is added the lack of medical resources and a testing capacity considered scarce (as of March the regime reported that only 64,207 people had been tested, 0.5% of its population).

The information on the deaths and possible infections came hours after White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told a news conference that the U.S. currently has no plans to deliver vaccines to North Korea.

Psaki also stressed that Pyongyang, which hours after announcing its first coronavirus cases launched short -range missiles on Thursday, appears to be preparing for a nuclear test – the first since 2017 – that it can conduct this month to coincide with the visit. US President Joe Biden in Seoul, where he will travel on May 20.

Origin of EFE