North Korean leader Kim Jong-un claimed yesterday that the spread of COVID-19 has thrown his country into “grave difficulty,” and he urged for an all-out campaign to end the outbreak, as 21 new fever fatalities were reported per day.

North Korea admitted to having a COVID-19 epidemic this week and enforced a statewide lockdown, despite having reported no instances since the pandemic began two years ago.

“The spread of the malignant epidemic is a great turmoil to fall on our country since the founding,” state news agency KCNA quoted Kim told an emergency gathering of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea.

“But if we don’t lose focus in implementing epidemic policy … we can more than overcome the crisis,” he was quoted as saying.

According to KCNA, the Workers’ Party meeting heard reports of around 280,810 persons being treated and 27 deaths since a fever of unknown origin was detected in late April.

The state media did not specify if the latest deaths were the result of North Korean Covid.

According to KCNA, one death was caused by the Omicron form of SARS-CoV-2.

The panel also heard from epidemic control officials, who stated that  “in most cases, human casualties were caused by negligence including drug overdose due to lack of knowledge of treatment methods,” KCNA said.

According to KCNA, Kim also stated that health officials must learn from the experiences of other sophisticated countries, especially China’s achievements in tackling the disease.

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