PYONGYANG, April 9. /TASS/. Pharmaceuticals from Russia, including Sputnik V, have not been delivered to North Korea because the republic’s borders are closed, the Russian embassy in Pyongyang told TASS.
"The borders of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea continue to remain closed. No pharmaceuticals, including vaccines, have been delivered here," Anastasia Chernitskaya, the press attache of the diplomatic mission, noted.
Earlier, Russian media outlets reported that a small batch of the Sputnik V vaccine had been delivered to North Korea for local specialists to study the preparation independently.
Last January, the East Asian republic introduced strict quarantine measures shutting its borders completely and isolating itself from the rest of the world.
In February, the international COVAX mechanism reported that North Korea will receive almost 2 mln doses of vaccines against the coronavirus by British-Swedish AstraZeneca with 1.7 mln doses planned to be delivered as early as May.
According to official data, no cases of the coronavirus infection have been detected in North Korea since the beginning of the pandemic.