Seoul: North Korea called for stronger measures against the rapidly spreading coronavirus pandemic at a meeting presided by leader Kim Jong Un, state media reported Sunday, without acknowledging whether the country had reported any infections.
The already isolated North Korea had promptly shut down its borders after the virus was first detected in neighbouring China in January, imposing strict measures.
Officials in Pyongyang and its state media have repeatedly insisted that the North remains totally free of the virus, but Sunday’s report did not make that assertion.
COVID-19 had become “a great disaster threatening the whole mankind, regardless of borders and continents”, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.
“Such environment can become a condition creating some obstacles to our struggle and progress,” it said, adding Pyongyang maintained “very stable anti-epidemic situation”.
The meeting discussed changing policy tasks in the wake of the epidemic, KCNA reported, as officials called for strict, thorough check of the infiltration of the deadly virus.
A joint resolution was adopted “on more thoroughly taking national measures for protecting the life and safety of our people to cope with the worldwide epidemic disease”, the KCNA said. (PTI)
