President Yoon Suk Yeol plans to provide North Korea with COVID-19 vaccines and medical supplies after the regime reported its first confirmed cases of infections and a death since the start of the global pandemic.

Presidential spokesperson Kang In-sun said on Friday that details on the aid plan will be decided through negotiations with the North, which claimed until this week to have had no cases of COVID-19 in the country.

Earlier in the day, the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency(KCNA) said around 187-thousand-800 people are being treated in quarantine after showing symptoms often seen with the COVID-19, such as fever, and six people have died.

One of the deceased had tested positive for the highly transmissible omicron variant.