How's the battle going against the coronavirus in North Korea? Over to the official Rodong Sinmun:
Effective state measures are taken in the DPRK to stabilize and improve the anti-epidemic work by keeping the balance between the supply and consumption of medicines in keeping with the current anti-epidemic situation across the country.
On the basis of a detailed analysis of the provision and possession of medicines in every region, the central emergency anti-epidemic sector is taking technical steps.
The Cabinet and the Ministry of Public Health push ahead with the work for ensuring the supply of medicines in a more effective, rapid and stabilized manner by setting up medicine-supply centers in different parts of the country.
New ideas are discussed and put into practice to expand the capacities of pharmaceutical factories for producing the Koryo medicines, which proved effective in the prevention and treatment of COVID-19, and various indispensable and reserve medicines.
Underway is the work for preventing various medical mishaps by carrying out proper pharmaceutical tests and for resolving the problems arising in working out and issuing new rules and regulations for the supply of medicines as required by the maximum emergency anti-epidemic system.
At least three hundred and sixty million medicines of more than 430 kinds have been supplied to medical organs in different parts of the country to make progress in the treatment of the fevered cases and the aftereffects....
Let's backtrack there for a minute. Koryo medicine? That's a form of traditional Korean medicine now practiced solely in North Korea. Examples of Koryo medicines include the bizarrely-named Royal Blood-Fresh, made from soy beans and marketed, as the name implies, as a blood purifier, and Kumdang-2, an alleged cure for AIDS, Ebola, MERS, and tuberculosis which, according to chemical analysis conducted by the South Korean National Forensic Service, turned out to be mostly made of the anaesthetic Procaine.
Effectiveness against Covid-19? Your guess is as good as mine, but I'd estimate somewhere around the 0% mark.Pyongyang has meanwhile turned down offers of Covid vaccines...
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