North Korean border city locked down over suspected Covid-19 case

North Korea has, until now, claimed not a single case of Covid-19 within its borders, a claim widely doubted by experts. Today, North Korea state media reports that the secretive nationโ€™s โ€œdear leaderโ€ Kim Jong Un has placed the city of Kaesong, near the border with South Korea, under total lockdown after a person was found with suspected coronavirus symptoms, saying he believes โ€œthe vicious virusโ€ may have entered the country.

If the patient tests positive, he or she will be the Northโ€™s first โ€œconfirmedโ€ coronavirus case. North Korea has consistently said itโ€™s had no virus cases in its territory, a claim widely disputed by outside observers.

The Korean Central News Agency reports that the lockdown was declared on Friday. State media say the suspected case is a runaway who fled to South Korea years ago before illegally crossing the border back into North Korea early last week.

None of the Coronavirus Counters has regifted the case as โ€˜officialโ€™ at this stage.

KCNA says โ€œrespiratory secretion and blood tests show the person is suspected to have been infectedโ€ with the virus. It reports that the suspected case and others who were in contact, as well as those who have been to Kaesong in the last 5 days, were placed under quarantine.

Earlier this year North Korea shut down nearly all cross-border traffic, banned foreign tourists altogether and mobilised health workers to quarantine anyone with symptoms, describing its anti-virus efforts as a โ€œmatter of national existenceโ€. But the Kaesong lockdown is the first such (known) measures taken in a North Korean city to control possible infections.

Experts say a Covid-19 outbreak in North Korea could have dire consequences because of the countryโ€™s poor public health infrastructure and chronic lack of medical supplies.

Kaesong, a city of an estimated 200,000 people, is just north of the heavily fortified land border with South Korea. It once hosted the Koreasโ€™ jointly run industrial complex, which has been stalled since 2016 amid nuclear tensions. In June North Korea blew up an inter-Korean liaison office there to protest a campaign by South Korean activists who were sending anti-Pyongyang leaflets across the border.

Over 33,000 North Koreans have fled to South Korea over the past 2 decades to avoid poverty and political suppression, mostly via the porous border with China. Itโ€™s rare for North Korean refugees to return to their homeland by recrossing the mine-strewn border.

SOURCES: Thai PBS World | AP

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