Kim orders tougher virus steps after N. Korea shuns vaccines
SEOUL: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered officials to wage a tougher epidemic prevention campaign in "our style" after he turned down some foreign COVID19 vaccines offered via the U.N.-backed immunization program. During a Politburo meeting Thursday, Kim said officials must "bear in mind that tightening epidemic prevention is the task of paramount importance which must not be loosened even a moment," the official Korean Central News Agency reported Friday.
While stressing the need for material and technical means of virus prevention and increasing health workers' qualifications, Kim also called for "further rounding off our style epidemic prevention system," KCNA said.
Kim previously called for North Koreans to brace for prolonged COVID-19 restrictions, indicating the nation's borders would stay closed despite worsening economic and food conditions. Since the start of the pandemic, North Korea has used tough quarantines and border closures to prevent outbreaks, though its claim to be entirely virusfree is widely doubted.
On Tuesday, UNICEF, which procures and delivers vaccines on behalf of the COVAX distribution program, said North Korea proposed its allotment of about 3 million Sinovac shots be sent to severely affected countries instead. North Korea was also slated to receive AstraZeneca shots through COVAX, but their delivery has been delayed.
According to UNICEF, North Korea's health ministry still said it would continue to communicate with COVAX over future vaccines. Some experts believe North Korea may want other vaccines, while questioning the effectiveness of Sinovac and the rare blood clots seen in some recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine.
The previously allocated 1.9 million AstraZeneca doses would be enough to vaccinate 950,000 people - only about 7.3% of the North's 26 million people - meaning North Korea would still need much more quantities of vaccine to inoculate its population.
Leif-Eric Easley, a professor of international studies at Seoul's Ewha Womans University, said North Korea is likely angling to receive more effective jabs from COVAX and then strategically allocate them domestically.
"Pyongyang appears to have issues with COVAX involving legal responsibility and distribution reporting requirements. So it might procure vaccines from China to deliver to border regions and soldiers while allocating COVAX shots to less sensitive populations," Easley said.-AP