Coronavirus: North Korea confirms first-ever COVID death and declares “severe national emergency”; key health concerns to know

North Korea has confirmed its first-ever COVID case and has declared a "severe national emergency". Leader Kim Jong-un has vowed to "eliminate" the virus, state media reported on Thursday.

The samples taken from patients sick with fever were "consistent with" the virus' highly transmissible Omicron variant, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

Ever since the onset of COVID-19 pandemic in late 2019, which has swept nations all over the world including North Korea’s neighbouring countries like Russia, South Korea, and China, the country has claimed to be COVID free.

Read: Is a headache without a fever a COVID-19 symptom?

Here’s what we know about North Korea's COVID situation right now:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has ordered nationwide lockdowns after reporting the first-ever case of COVID. He has ordered factories, businesses and homes to be closed down and reorganised. "He reiterated the importance of the work of all the provinces, cities and counties of the country to take steps for isolating each working unit, production unit and residential unit from each other while locking down their areas and providing the inhabitants with every convenience in curbing the spread of the malicious virus," KCNA reports.

North Korea had claimed to be COVID free till date, but experts had doubts over the claim as all its neighbouring countries, China especially, was severely hit by the pandemic.

The country's borders were sealed in January 2020.

"North Korea's claim of a perfect record in keeping out the virus for two and a half years was widely doubted. But it was believed to have avoided a huge outbreak until now, in part because it instituted strict virus controls almost from the start of the pandemic," AP reported.

"A fever whose cause couldn't be identified explosively spread nationwide from late April and more than 350 000 people got fever in a short span of time and at least 162 200 out of them were healed completely. On May 12 alone, some 18 000 persons with fever occurred nationwide and as of now up to 187 800 people are being isolated and treated," the official media has said.

Currently, about 187,800 people are being treated in isolation after a fever of unidentified origin has “explosively spread nationwide” since late April.

As per the latest update from the official media KCNA six people have died among which one tested positive for BA.2 sub-variant of Omicron.

As per the KCNA reports, the samples taken from infected individuals are similar to that of Omicron variant of the coronavirus, which caused the massive third wave of COVID in India and many countries.

However, no report is available on how many COVID cases are currently active in the country.

Emphasizing on the need to deal with the situation, Kim Jong Un has directed the sectors of the public health and emergency epidemic prevention to "minutely observe characteristics of the course of diseases of persons with fever, set up scientific treatment methods and tactics at a lightning tempo as demanded by the specialized manuals and further strengthen the state's measures for supplying medicines", the KCNA said.

He has "criticized that the simultaneous spread of fever with the capital area as a centre shows that there is a vulnerable point in the epidemic prevention system we have already established," the KCNA said.

It is expected that a massive military parade in Pyongyang on April 25 has accelerated the spread of the virus. Kim Jong Un took centre stage and showcased the most powerful missiles of his military nuclear programme in front of tens of thousands.

Experts believe that the entire population of North Korea has not been vaccinated against COVID yet.

North Korea has so far refused to accept millions of doses of Covid-19 vaccine proposed in the COVAX global distribution programme, as it had claimed to be coronavirus-free, with strict border controls in place over the past two years against the pandemic.

“North Korea likely doesn’t have sufficient COVID-19 tests and other medical equipment and said it didn’t know the cause of the mass fevers. But a big COVID-19 outbreak could be devastating in a country with a broken healthcare system and an unvaccinated, malnourished population,” AP reported.

Meanwhile, as per the data collected by Bloomberg, more than 11.7 billion doses of COVID vaccine have been administered across 184 countries. Many countries have started giving booster doses to people. Countries that have the highest levels of vaccination, are seeing a downfall in death rates, reports have established.

(With inputs from agencies)