It's a first. North Korea reported on Sunday July 26 a first "suspected" case of Covid-19, ordered the confinement of the city of Kaesong where it was detected, and placed itself in a state of " maximum urgency "to stop the plague.

The case concerns a person who "returned on July 19 after illegally crossing the demarcation line" which serves as a border with South Korea, the official KCNA news agency said.

If confirmed, this would be the first officially identified case of Covid-19 in North Korea where the health system infrastructure is particularly inadequate to deal with such an epidemic.

>> To read: Covid-19: restrictions regain force in the world

The person suspected of carrying the virus is presented as "a fugitive who traveled to the south three years ago" and was found in the town of Kaesong, on the border with South Korea. This person would thus have succeeded in crossing the heavily fortified border which separates the two countries.

However, from South Korea, there has been no information about any attempt to fraudulently cross this border, marked among other things by mined areas, one of the most heavily guarded borders in the world. .

Probable entry of the coronavirus via the northern border

According to the KCNA agency, the person in question "was initially put under strict quarantine, and all the people (...) who came into contact with this person and those who have been in this city in the last five years. days are under full investigation ".

Pyongyang had previously assured that there was no case of coronavirus and that the country's borders would remain closed. China and North Korea share 1,400 kilometers of border which is particularly porous during winter, when frozen rivers facilitate illegal crossings.

>> To read: Why North Korea is currently targeting its southern neighbor

Dozens of North Korean nationals cross the border daily to transport contraband products and analysts argue that they probably transported the virus to this isolated country, even before the borders were closed.

"No doubt the coronavirus was imported into the North from China," said Go Myong-hyun, an analyst with the Asan Institute for Policy Studies, pointing to the high border traffic between the two countries and the significant number of cases reported by Beijing.

Emergency meeting convened by Kim Jong-un

To deal with the "dangerous situation (...) which could lead to a deadly and destructive catastrophe," North Korean leader Kim Jong-un called an emergency meeting of the political bureau on Saturday to adopt a "system of emergency and issue a high level alert "to contain the epidemic, said the official agency.

Despite strict quarantine measures, "it looks like the vicious virus has entered the country," Kim Jong-un said according to KCNA. The North Korean leader said that the government had taken "the preventive measure of completely confining the city of Kaesong" on July 24, the same source added.

For its part, South Korea reported an upsurge in cases on Saturday, registering its highest toll in nearly four months with 113 new cases, 86 of which involve people arriving from abroad.

The Covid-19 pandemic that broke out at the end of 2019 in China killed nearly 640,000 people worldwide and continues to grow. More than 280,000 new contaminations were identified for the single day of Friday.

With AFP

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