North Korean leader Kim Jong Un wears a face mask on state television
(Picture: AP)North Korea reported 15 deaths on Sunday as the country battles with a Covid outbreak, local media reported on Sunday.
The additional deaths now take the country’s overall total of fever-related fatalities to 42.
The official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) also said there had been 296,180 cases of people suffering with fever-like symptoms - taking the reported total to 820,620.
On Thursday, North Korean media admitted the country is battling with a virus outbreak as leader, Kim Jong Un, called a lockdown across the country.
After reporting no Covid cases throughout the pandemic, officials said a “fever” had now spread across the country.
Although state media did not explcity state the new cases were due to Covid, Kim was seen wearing a protective mask in public during a cabinet meeting this week.
KCNA news also quoted Kim as saying: “The spread of the malignant epidemic is the greatest turmoil to fall on our country since the founding.”
Health experts have warned the hermit state has a widely unvaccinated public and does not have the adequate infrstructure to protect the public.
"Without Covid-19 test kits, North Korea is resorting to body temperature checks to guess at infections. But with such a very inferior and inaccurate method of examination, it's impossible to find asymptomatic virus carriers and control viral surges," said analyst Cheong Seong-Chang at South Korea's Sejong Institute.
"As North Korea's suspected Covid-19 infections are explosively increasing, its death toll is expected to continue to rise," Mr Cheong added.
KCNA said on Friday that one person with the Omicron variant of the coronavirus had been pronounced dead.
North Korea has not confirmed the source of the outbreak. But a Seoul-based website that reports from sources in North Korea said late on Friday some students at a university in Pyongyang had tested positive after participating in an event on May 1.
