There has been a noticeable spike in cases of high fever, coughing and other COVID-like symptoms in Yanggang Province as of late, Daily NK has learned.
A source in Yanggang Province told Daily NK on Thursday that cases “resembling COVID” are skyrocketing in certain areas like the city of Hyesan since mid-January.
“It seems cases are climbing with falling immunity due to hunger overlapping with the freezing cold,” he said.
According to the source, many Yanggang Province residents have recently been complaining of high fever, coughs, phlegm and severe joint pain.
However, hospitals and other medical institutions uniformly diagnose such cases as the flu, simply telling patients to keep taking cold medicine.
The source said patients are being forced to suffer, unable to even tell if they have the flu or COVID-19.
However, with more and more patients suffering similar symptoms, not only is getting one’s hands on medicines in pharmacies and markets proving difficult, but the medicines are reportedly ineffective even if you find them.
In fact, a 40-year-old man in Hyesan’s Hyetan-dong neighborhood — identified by his surname of Choe — purchased three days of aspirin to treat the high fever, cough and joint pain from which he had been suffering since Jan. 19.
However, he is reportedly still suffering as the aspirin had little effect, even after consuming all of it.
Even residents of downtown districts like Hyehung-dong and Hyesin-dong find cold medicine and fever remedies ineffective, leading some to complain that “only fake drugs are in circulation” and that “buying real drugs has become practically impossible, even if you have money.”
A man in his 50s in Samsu County — identified by his surname of Pak — reportedly went to the county hospital with a high fever on Jan. 18, but was given neither a precise diagnosis nor medicine.
The hospital simply told him to take cold medicine and fever medicine three times a day.
Pak reportedly complained that “everyone knows you need to take medicine. I came to the hospital because I have no medicine at home or money to buy any, so what’s the deal with doctors not giving patients medicine?”
The source said local resentment is reaching a fever pitch as hospitals give out useless prescriptions and medicines prove difficult to purchase — and ineffective at that.
People “don’t think about going to the hospital even if they have a high fever because they’ll receive no proper prescription even if they go there because they’re sick,” he continued, adding, “Nowadays, it’s hard to receive treatment for an illness, even if you have money.”
Translated by David Black. Edited by Robert Lauler.
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