North Korea fights covid with mint tea and TV ads

During a recent overnight visit to a pharmacy, Kim Jong Un, wearing a double mask, lamented the slow delivery of medicines. On the other hand, subordinates of the North Korean leader were quarantined hundreds of thousands of potential COVID-19 patients and driven people with mild symptoms already drink willow or mint tea.

Despite North Korea’s propaganda boasting the government’s campaign against the virus, The fear of the people was great, according to defectors in South Korea who have contacts in the north, and some experts fear the outbreak will worsen in a country where the majority of an afflicted and unvaccinated population is inadequate hospital care and have trouble paying for even the simplest medicine.

“North Koreans know that many people have died around the world because of COVID-19, so they are afraid that some of them may also die, ” said Kang Mi-jin, a North Korean defector, who cited his phone conversations with contacts in the northern city of Hyesan. People who can afford it buy traditional medicines to alleviate their fears.

Since admitting its first described outbreak of COVID-19 last week, North Korea has struggled to manage a looming health crisis that has raised public anxiety over a virus that has so far. claimed to have been concealed.

Pandemic management seems to be primarily focused on isolate potential patients. It is possible that this is all the country can do, without vaccines, antiviral pills, intensive care units or other medical resources that allow millions of patients in other countries to survive.

North Korean health authorities said on Thursday that a rapid spread of fever had killed 63 people and sickened nearly two million since the end of April, with approximately 740,000 people still quarantined.

But Pyongyang limits covid infections to 168, despite an increase in cases of fever. There are many international experts doubt those figures and they believe the true incidence of the outbreak was not reported to avoid discontent among populations that could undermine Kim’s leadership.

According to state media, they have already mobilized one million public workers to identify potential patients. Kim Jong Un also ordered military doctors to help deliver medicine to pharmacies, before visiting pharmacies in Pyongyang early Sunday morning.

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North Korea also uses state media – newspapers, television and radio – to give advice on how to fight the virus to its citizens, most of whom have no access to the internet or news from foreign media.

“It is important that we find every person with symptoms of fever so that they can be isolated and treated, to block the spaces where the infectious disease can spread,” Ryu Yong Chol, a civil servant, told state television on Wednesday. the anti-virus agency in Pyongyang.

State television broadcasts informative notices wherein animation characters It is recommended that people go to the doctor if they have breathing problems, spit blood or faint.

They also explain medications that patients can take, including home remedies such as tea with honey. The country’s leading newspaper, Rodong Sinmun, recommends that people with mild symptoms boil 4 to 5 grams of willow leaves or honeysuckle in water and drink the brew three times a day.

“These recommendations they make no sense. It’s like the government asking people to only contact a doctor if they have breathing problems, i.e. before dying‘said former North Korea agriculture official Cho Chung Hui, who fled South Korea in 2011. “It hurts my heart when I think of my brothers and sisters in North Korea and their suffering.”

Kang, who runs a company that analyzes the North Korean economy, said his Hyesan contacts told him that North Korean residents had been asked to read it carefully Rodong Sinmun reported on how the country is working to prevent the outbreak.

From May 12 travel is prohibited between regions of the country, but the government has not tried to impose stricter quarantine as in China.

North Korea’s economy is fragile due to border closures and decades of mismanagement, so the country has encouraged agriculture, construction and other industrial activity to accelerate. You said that the people in Hyesan you keep working.

The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights expressed concern this week about the consequences of North Korea’s quarantine measures, noting that segregation and travel restrictions would have harsh consequences for people who are already having difficulty meeting their basic needs. , Yes get enough food.

“Children, breastfeeding mothers, the elderly, the homeless, and those living in more isolated rural and border areas are especially vulnerable,” the office said in a statement.

Defectors in South Korea say they fear for their loved ones in North Korea.

They also have a suspicion of COVID-19 has spread in North Korea even before official recognition.

“My father is still in North Korea and I am very worried about them they were not vaccinated and had no medication” said Kang Na-ra, who fled to South Korea in late 2014. His brother told him in a call recently that his grandmother died in September of pneumonia, which he believes was due to COVID-19.

Defector Choi Song-juk said his sister was a farmer in North Korea. The last time they spoke on the phone, in February, he said he, his daughter and several neighbors fell ill with similar symptoms of coronavirus, such as high fever, cough, and sore throat.

Choi said her sister pays brokers to arrange calls, but she hasn’t called recently, even though it’s the time of year when she is often short of food and needs money transfers to through a network of brokers. Choi said the disconnection was due to movement restrictions associated with the virus.

“I am very sad. I must contact her again because she has no food and collecting wild plants“said Choi, who left North Korea in 2015.

In recent years, Kim Jong Un has built modern hospitals and upgraded medical systems, but his critics say most are for the ruling elite of the country and that socialist free medical services are in ruins.

Recent defectors say there are many domestic manufactured drugs in the markets, but they have quality problems and people prefer South Korean, Chinese and Russian drugs. But medicines abroad are often expensive, so are the poor, that is majority of the population of the country, you cannot afford them.

“If you’re sick in North Korea, we often say you’re going to die,” Choi said.

Despite the outbreak, North Korea did not publicly respond to South Korean and U.S. offers of medical assistance. World Health Organization Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Tuesday that the international body was “concerned about the risk of further expansion” in North Korea and the lack of information about the outbreak.

Choi Jung Hun, a former North Korean doctor who moved to South Korea, suspects that North Korea is taking advantage of its handling of the pandemic to strengthen Kim’s image as a concerned leader of population and combine internal cohesion. The low official death toll could also be used as a propaganda tool, he said.

“Someday they will say they have COVID-19. Comparing the number of deaths they have in the United States and South Korea, they will say that their work and their anti-epidemic system are very good. This is the best in the world ‘said Choi, who is now a researcher at an institute affiliated with Korea University in South Korea.

By Hyung-Jin Kim and Kim Tong-Hyung, Associated Press

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