North Korea launches biggest vaccination drive since Covid after children left unprotected
Prior to 2020, North Korea had a 96 per cent vaccine coverage rate but this dropped to 42 per cent by 2021, according to Unicef data.
Trying to address this, after 18 months of what Mr Kupka describes as “intense planning,” in July, Unicef, Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance and the World Health Organization were able to deliver four million doses of vaccines against measles, rubella, tetanus, diphtheria, tuberculosis, hepatitis B, and polio.
“What we’re facing in the DPRK is that the borders remain largely closed, and we’re also facing some important logistical challenges that require us to use flights as the way to bring the vaccines to DPRK,” said Mr Kupka, explaining that the vaccines first had to travel to China and then be flown into North Korea. In the past, shipments were sent by rail from China but tighter border restrictions have made that harder to do. “It’s much more straightforward in other countries,” Mr Kupka said.
Half of the doses will be administered in the coming weeks by the Ministry of Public Health to 800,000 children and 120,000 pregnant women across the country’s nine provinces. Unicef’s 10 national staff members have trained 7,200 health workers on how to deliver the vaccines. The other half will be stockpiled in local health centres to support a reboot of routine immunisation. Unicef has sent freezers and fridges to help maintain vaccine temperatures alongside essential vitamins and mineral supplements.
Isolation ‘will only add further burden’
This is the fourth but by far the largest “catch up campaign” Unicef has supported since 2021. It expects to send two more vaccine shipments by the end of this year. Whilst North Korea reportedly has some vaccine manufacturing capabilities, they are not reported to be of WHO standard.
To restore pre-pandemic vaccination levels, Mr Kupka said the North Korean government must allow UN international staff to return to the country – something Pyongyang is yet to permit. In 2020, Unicef had 18 international staff in North Korea whose presence helped to increase the trust from international donors, he added.
“When it comes to the actual programming in DPRK, the opportunities for collaboration are unfortunately limited at this point,” he said. But it’s important to still work with a country, regardless of how contentious it might be with other states, in order to ensure innocent children are protected like any others from illness, he added.
Several other UN officials and human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch who called the country a “the giant prison,” have urged North Korea to open up and permit “monitored international emergency assistance”.
“Further isolation of the country will only add a further burden on the North Korean people who are struggling to find food for their families,” said UN officials in a 2023 statement.
The suffering of North Koreans has been compouded by typhoons and floods that have destroyed thousands of homes in the past year as well as the prolonged loss of access to food and medicines.
While a UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization delegation was able to visit the capital of Pyongyang in July to discuss food security and nutrition, Mr Kupka said it’s not clear whether such visits are tied to a larger discussion on international staff return “although we continue to urge the DPRK government to make that possible.”
Travel companies, however, report a potential opening to tourists at the end of the year.
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