NORTH Korea said its Covid-19 outbreak has been brought under control, with state media reporting falling caseloads for a seventh straight day today as healthcare workers “intensify” testing and treatment.

But experts questioned the official numbers given the isolated country has one of the worst healthcare systems in the world and likely no coronavirus drugs or mass testing ability.

State-run KCNA said “progress” has been made in diagnosing and treating patients thanks to “the devoted efforts” of medical workers.

North Korea announced its first Covid-19 cases on May 12, and activated a “maximum emergency epidemic prevention system”, with leader Kim Jong-un putting himself front and centre of the response by the government.

Kim blamed “lazy” officials for a sluggish reaction to the outbreak and deployed the army to staff pharmacies.

State media this weekend said the epidemic has been brought under control, and KCNA reiterated that message on Tuesday.

“Nationwide morbidity and mortality rates have drastically decreased,” said the news agency.

It reported just over 100,000 new cases of “fever” today, down from a high of 390,000 a day reported earlier this month.

KCNA also reported one more death today – taking the toll to 69 – and claimed the fatality rate remains at 0.002%.

More than three million people have fallen sick, it added.

North Korea has not vaccinated any of its roughly 25 million people, having rejected jabs offered by the World Health Organisation.

‘Recovered’

Jong Jun-ho, an army medic deployed in Pyongyang, said the number of patients his team is treating every day has dramatically decreased.

“At first, there were many feverish people, so mainly antipyretics were supplied to the patients,” he said, referring to medicines that reduce fever.

From a high of up to 400 patients a day, his team is now seeing only about 30 patients a day, he added.

Now that many people have “recovered”, he said mainly “medicines for bronchitis” are being given to patients who are suffering the after-effects of infection.

KCNA said hospitals are “stepping up the development and production of test reagents and treatment medicines”.

“Tens of millions of medicines of more than 90 kinds are supplied to different parts of the country on May 24 alone.”

Pyongyang has not responded to an offer of help from Seoul, according to South Korea’s Unification Ministry.

During a visit to Seoul last week, United States President Joe Biden said Washington also offered Covid-19 vaccines to Pyongyang but “got no response”.

Despite the outbreak, new satellite imagery indicates that North Korea has resumed construction at a long-dormant nuclear reactor.

The US and South Korea have both warned that Kim is poised to conduct another nuclear test any day, which will be the seventh. – AFP, May 27, 2022.