Coronavirus: North Korea needs 60 million jabs to head off disaster, UN rights official warns; Thailand relaxes entry rules to lure tourists

A plentiful supply of vaccines could persuade Pyongyang to ease lockdowns that have left some of its 26 million people on the verge of starvation

Elsewhere, Cambodia is rolling out Sinovac jabs for children ages 3-4; and South Korea’s new daily cases surge past 170,000 for first time

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People visit the statues of former leaders Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il in Pyongyang earlier this month. North Korea has relied on punishing lockdowns and other restrictions in lieu of vaccines. Photo: AP

Published: 5:45pm, 23 Feb 2022Updated: 6:13pm, 23 Feb 2022

The international community should form a strategy to provide North Korea with at least 60 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines to head off humanitarian disaster, an independent UN human rights investigator said on Wednesday.

The vaccines could be a way to persuade the country to ease lockdowns that have left some of its 26 million people on the verge of starvation, Tomas Ojea Quintana, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, told a briefing in Seoul.

“It is imperative that the population of North Korea start to be vaccinated … so that the government will have no excuse to maintain the closing of the borders,” he said.

A North Korean woman and child seen at Lunar New Year celebrations in Pyongyang earlier this month. Photo: AP

North Korea is not known to have imported any Covid-19 vaccines, and the COVAX global Covid-19 vaccine-sharing programme has scaled back the number of doses allocated for the country.

Last year North Korea rejected planned shipments of AstraZeneca’s Covid-19 vaccine that were being organised under the Covax Facility due to concerns over side effects, a South Korean think tank said at the time.

Pyongyang also turned down an offer of 3 million Covid-19 vaccine doses of China’s Sinovac Biotech, UNICEF said last year.

Authorities in Pyongyang appeared to be suspicious of receiving just a partial amount of vaccines and then to be under pressure to accept more, something that could be resolved by reaching a deal to provide enough doses for the whole country, Ojea Quintana said.