North Korea won't accept help to treat COVID crisis

With a recorded coronavirus case load nearing two million, next to no vaccines, sparse medical infrastructure and limited ties to the global health community, North Korea, which has long shunned outside help, appears to be on the cusp of a crisis.

While it is too late to stave off the full force of the country's first wave with a vaccine campaign, there are other provisions that could be donated, from antiviral treatments to protective gear for health workers, that could slow the outbreak and protect the most vulnerable.

But it is not clear whether North Korea would accept such offers of help.

Over the past two years, as the pandemic raged around the world, North Korea refused multiple coronavirus vaccine offers. Instead, the country, already hermetic by choice and isolated by sanctions, closed its borders to the world in a bid to maintain a “zero COVID” approach.

The approach failed. Experts warn that the country's coronavirus death toll could top 100,000.

The country's first confirmed COVID-19 outbreak spread after a massive military parade in Pyongyang in April, the South's Newsis news agency said on Wednesday, citing lawmakers briefed by the South's spy agency.

By most accounts close to entirely unvaccinated, North Korea faces incredible risks from the fast-spreading BA.2 subvariant of Omicron identified in the country. Vaccines cannot be administered quickly and widely enough to stop it once it begins.

One of the only countries that North Korea might accept help from is neighbouring China. South Korean media reported this week that flights had resumed between China and North Korea for the first time in two years, probably carrying emergency supplies.

Speaking at a news conference in Geneva on Tuesday, WHO emergency chief Mike Ryan said the body “has no special powers to intervene” and called on neighbouring countries to help.