North Korea’s Covid outbreak began with citizens touching “alien things” that had fallen near its South Korea border, state media in Pyongyang has claimed. Citizens were urged to be vigilant around objects that may have blown across the border from the South.
For years activists in the South have flown balloons across the border to send leaflets and humanitarian aid. In response, Seoul says there is “no possibility” Covid could have crossed the border in that way.
According to North Korea’s state media, an official investigation found two people who became infected with Covid early on in the outbreak after coming into contact with unidentified materials near the South Korean border.
An 18-year-old soldier and five-year-old child tested positive for the virus in early April after finding the objects on a hill in Ipoh-RI, it reported.
Since then, state media said: “The deadly COVID-19 virus has spread rapidly in DPRK North Korea.”
As a result of the investigation, people in the country are instructed to “vigilantly deal with wind and other climate phenomena and foreign objects coming from balloons in areas along the demarcation line and borders.”
Anyone who notices a strange object is instructed to report it immediately so that it can be swiftly removed by an emergency anti-epidemic team.
Although the report did not directly mention South Korea, Seoul’s unification ministry strongly denied the North’s explanation of how Covid could enter the country.
The closed border between Korea is one of the most guarded in the world, but defectors and South Korean activists have for years launched balloons across the division carrying North-Korean messages.
North Korea has been battling an explosive wave of 4.7 million cases of “fever” since late April, which is believed to be an untested COVID infection.
Kim Jong-un described the outbreak in May as “the biggest upheaval to befall our country since inception”, state media reported.
Until this year the reclusive nation claimed to be completely COVID-free – although some experts believe the virus may have been circulating before then.
Its 25 million population is vulnerable to a lack of vaccination programs and poor health care systems, although there have been media reports in recent weeks that Pyongyang has accepted offers of Chinese-made vaccines.
It is not clear how many North Koreans have been vaccinated so far. Over the past few weeks, officials say the number of new cases has dropped dramatically, but many suspect the government is underreporting the true figures.
The outbreak began a few months after the North eased a strict lockdown of its border with China, with goods trains resuming their travel between the two countries for the first time since the start of 2020.