North Korea imposes strict lockdown over alleged 'first' coronavirus cases in the country, BBC reports.

State media reported an outbreak of the Omicron strain in Pyongyang, but did not name the number of cases..

A number of experts claim that the authorities simply hid the presence of the virus in the country all this time.. The country's 25 million population is significantly vulnerable to the coronavirus as the DPRK refused to vaccinate, declining international offers to supply millions of Chinese vaccines to AstraZeneca and Sinovac last year. There's also concern about North Korea's poor healthcare system..

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North Korea's main way of fighting Covid-19 all this time has been to close its borders - it was one of the first countries to do so in January 2020..

At the same time, it stopped the flow of necessary goods into the country, which led to food shortages and the destruction of the economy..

The South Korean government said it had renewed its offer of humanitarian aid to the DPRK in response to news of the outbreak.. Pyongyang has not yet responded.

According to WHO, since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020, more than 500 million people have been ill with coronavirus in the world, of which 6 million have died..