With the lifting of many restrictions, such as the requirements for wearing masks and social distancing, in many countries of the world, North Korea remains one of two countries that have not yet begun to vaccinate their population against Corona, with no indications on how to reopen the country, despite the worsening humanitarian crisis it is experiencing. Its people, according to the “Washington Post”.
Besides North Korea, Eritrea is the second country that has not started vaccinating its population and has not received the vaccine. Note that it has a population of six million
North Korea, still in a state of strict closure due to the Corona epidemic, has closed its borders except for allowing minimal trade with China, causing serious repercussions on the health and food security of its residents.
In a recent report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on human rights in North Korea, Thomas Ojea Quintana, said that restrictions imposed on the country, including border closures, apparently prevented the outbreak of the disease within the country, but exacerbated the food crisis, according to What the newspaper reported.
But Quintana noted that the exact health situation at home is unclear, due to information restrictions, and diplomats, humanitarian aid groups and tourists are no longer able to enter the country.
Quintana urged the international community to find a way to get the 60 million doses needed into the country to immunize its 25 million people.
Pyongyang has repeatedly rejected offers of millions of doses of coronavirus vaccines.
Last year, North Korea rejected nearly three million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine, saying the shipments should go to other countries that need it most. It also rejected 2 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine and the University of Oxford due to concerns about potential side effects.
According to a report issued by a panel of experts, convened by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, North Korean officials prefer mRNA-based vaccines such as Pfizer and Moderna. The panel concluded that Pyongyang might be interested in a large-scale offer of this type of vaccine.
The danger is that with absolutely no vaccines, North Korea risks becoming a hotbed of new variants as a result of the population’s reduced immunity to the virus, according to the commission.
Officials at the North Korean mission to the United Nations did not respond to a request for comment on whether the country intends to accept vaccines.
North Korea showed signs of reopening the country earlier this year in January, but a spike in virus infections in China has led to a return to strict isolation.
A global health expert at Harvard Medical School who has worked on healthcare projects in North Korea, Ki Park, warns that Pyongyang should take a different strategy this time when the country reopens because “the zero-Covid strategy is starting to collapse.”