First modification: 09/09/2022 – 10:48
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Seoul (AFP) – North Korea will begin vaccinating its population against Covid-19 in November, state media said on Friday, about a month after Pyongyang claimed victory over an outbreak of the virus.
It is the first time that the country has officially announced a plan to immunize its population since the start of the pandemic.
“In parallel with the administration responsible for the vaccine, we must recommend that all citizens wear a face mask to protect their health from November,” said leader Kim Jong Un from the official KCNA news agency.
Health experts in the country believe that the levels of antibodies in the population acquired from the outbreak reported in May will begin to decline in October, Kim said.
The KCNA information does not specify where the vaccines will come from or what type they will be.
According to a South Korean think tank, Pyongyang last year refused to ship AstraZeneca’s anti-Covid vaccines under the World Health Organization’s Covax program for fear of side effects.
North Korea is suspected not to have vaccinated its 26 million citizens, although South Korean specialist media NK News reported that Pyongyang may have received some doses from China, its main ally.
The impoverished country has applied a severe external lockdown since the start of the pandemic, but even so, in May it reported the appearance of an outbreak in the capital that caused nearly 4.8 million infections.
The official tally reports only 74 deaths from the pandemic, a statistic that health experts and the WHO are wary of.
© 2022 AFP
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