North Korea rejects nearly 3 million Chinese Covid-19 shots, gives humanitarian angle
In July, a South Korea think tank said that North Korea had also rejected shipments of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine over safety concerns.
North Korea has rejected around three million doses of the Chinese Sinovac vaccine against coronavirus disease (Covid-19), reported news agencies quoting Unicef.
The secretive regime, which has not reported a single case of Covid-19, suggested that the vaccines should be given to severely affected countries, according to the UN agency that manages the supply of Covid-19 vaccines for lower-income countries under the COVAX scheme.
North Korea was the first country to impose strict nationwide lockdown and close its borders in January last year to stop the spread of coronavirus from neighbouring China where the virus first emerged. While the isolated country has not officially reported any Covid-19 case to the World Health Organization (WHO), analysts doubt the claim.
North Korea’s public health ministry “has communicated that the 2.97 million Sinovac doses being offered to DPR Korea by Covax may be relocated to severely affected countries in view of the limited global supply of Covid-19 vaccines and recurrent surge in some countries”, AFP quoted a spokesperson for Unicef as saying.