The Washington Post says North Korea and Eritrea are the only two countries in the world that have not vaccinated their populations against COVID-19.

The daily said this comes as there are no signs of the reclusive state reopening despite what the article called “a brewing humanitarian crisis for its people.”

It quoted a report by the UN special rapporteur on North Korean human rights, Tomás Ojea Quintana, who assessed that the North’s COVID-19 “restrictions, including border closures, appear to have prevented an outbreak inside the country, though likely at considerable cost to the wider health situation and further exacerbating economic deprivation.”


Quintana has stressed the need for the international community to find a way to deliver all 60 million doses the North needs to vaccinate its population of 25 million.

Last year, Pyongyang turned down roughly three million doses of China’s Sinovac vaccine as well as two million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine, apparently out of out of concerns about potential side effects.