Seoul: North Korea on Thursday reported another infectious disease outbreak in addition to its ongoing COVID-19 outbreak, saying leader Kim Jong Un has donated his personal medicines to people diagnosed with the new disease. It’s not clear how serious the new pandemic is, but some outside observers say North Korea aims to burnish Kim’s image as a leader caring for public livelihoods as he needs to overcome difficulties related to the pandemic. Greater public support is needed.
Kim offered his family reserve medicines for people suffering from “an acute intestinal epidemic” in southeastern Heju city on Wednesday, the official Korean Central News Agency reported. The North’s main Rodong Sinmun newspaper separately carried a front-page photo showing Kim and his wife Ri Sol Joo reviewing the saline solution and other medicines they were donating.
KCNA did not elaborate on what the pandemic was and how many people have been infected.
Some observers say that the “enteric epidemic” in North Korea refers to infectious disease such as typhoid, dysentery or cholera, which are intestinal diseases caused by germs transmitted through contaminated food and water or through contact with the feces of infected people. .
Such diseases occur regularly in North Korea, which lacks good water treatment facilities and whose public health infrastructure has been largely broken since the mid-1990s.
After North Korea reported an increasing number of patients with fever symptoms last month coronavirus outbreak acceptanceSouth Korea’s spy agency said a “significant number” of those fever cases involved people suffering from diseases such as measles, typhoid and pertussis.
“Outbreaks of measles or typhoid are not uncommon in North Korea. I think it’s true that there is an outbreak of infectious disease, but North Korea is using it to emphasize that Kim is taking care of his people.” ,” said Ahn Kyung-su, head of DPRKHEALTH.ORG, a website focused on health issues in North Korea.
According to state media reports, last month, Kim had already sent his family’s medicines to COVID-19 patients.
The KCNA said more than 4.5 million of the country’s 26 million people have fallen ill due to an unknown fever, but only 73 have died. The country has identified only a fraction of the confirmed coronavirus cases due to an apparent shortage of testing kits. Many foreign experts question the North’s death toll, saying it is unlikely to protect Kim from any political damage at home.
During a convention of the ruling party last week, Kim claimed the pandemic situation had gone through a “serious crisis” phase. But the country still maintains heightened sanctions, which some outside experts say will further strain the country’s already troubled economy, hit by border closures and UN sanctions related to the long-running pandemic.