SEOUL, May 18. /TASS/. The authorities of North Korea registered 232,000 cases of fever against the backdrop of a coronavirus outbreak in the country, the overall number of such cases since late April currently stands at 1.72 million, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency said, citing North’s KCNA.

Slightly more than 1 million of patients have already recovered, while about 1,691,000 are currently being treated. Six fever patients died in the past day, bringing the official death toll to 62. At least one of those individuals was previously diagnosed with the omicron strain of the novel coronavirus.

As Yonhap reported earlier with reference to South Korean experts, the official statistics of North Korea provides only the number of people with fever symptoms, presumably due to lack of equipment for mass COVID-19 tests.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un has chaired a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers' Party to address the crisis. He noted "immaturity in the state capacity for coping with the crisis" at the early stages, adding that the slack response has exposed "vulnerable points" in the government’s work.

On May 12, KCNA reported that North Korea had detected its first case of the BA.2 Omicron variant, also known as stealth Omicron.