The World Health Organization has cast doubts on North Korea’s claims of progress in the fight against a Covid-19 outbreak, saying it believes the situation is getting worse, not better, amid an absence of independent data.
North Korean state media has claimed the Covid wave has abated, after daily numbers of people with fever topped 390,000 about two weeks ago.
Pyongyang has never directly confirmed how many people have tested positive for the virus but experts suspect underreporting in the figures released through government-controlled media, making it difficult to assess the scale of the situation.
The North Korean premier, Kim Tok-hun, inspected a pair of pharmaceutical factories, amid a push to put the country’s drug industry on a “on a new higher level”, including meeting international standards, KCNA reported. “Sufficient production and supply of medicines serve as a prerequisite to protecting the people’s lives and health in the current rigorous anti-epidemic campaign,” he said.
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