Get our daily coronavirus email newsletter with all the news you need to know direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for subscribing We have more newsletters Show me See our privacy notice Invalid Email

North Korea has claimed its pandemic defence systems are so effective that coronavirus has not breached its borders at all.

Authorities have insisted the secretive state doesn't have a single case of the virus that has killed thousands around the globe.

The claim comes despite Covid-19 sweeping through South Korea, which had recorded 169 deaths and nearly 10,000 confirmed cases as of April 1, according to Reuters.

It is near impossible to verify the claim, as Pyongyang releases what scant information it shares with the world about its people via tightly-controlled state media propaganda.

The hermit state, for which being sealed off from the outside world is closer to status quo than extraordinary, shut its borders in January after the virus was first detected in neighbouring China.

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Its claim is nevertheless being treated with scepticism.

Nearly every other country in the world has reported outbreaks, and the World Health Organisation this week confirmed Covid-19 has infected nearly one million globally.

But leader Kim Jong-un's regime continues to insist the virus has not touched down there yet, saying it took preventative measures early.

Pak Myong Su, director of the anti-epidemic department of the North's Central Emergency Anti-epidemic Headquarters, has claimed that the measures have been entirely successful.

"Not one single person has been infected with the novel coronavirus in our country so far," Pak told Agence France-Presse.

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

"We have carried out pre-emptive and scientific measures such as inspections and quarantine for all personnel entering our country and thoroughly disinfecting all goods, as well as closing borders and blocking sea and air lanes."

Reuters reported this morning that secretive behaviour in some countries has made it hard to track the virus' spread internationally.

US spy agencies are reportedly finding serious gaps in their ability to assess the spread of coronavirus in North Korea, China, and Russia.

Doubts have already been raised about official figures from China.

(Image: AFP via Getty Images)

Reports of the speed of the downturn in cases on the mainland and what now appears to be a relatively low death toll compared to emerging epicentres in Italy, Spain, the US and the UK have prompted scepticism.

Reuters reports that the shroud of secrecy in some countries is hindering international efforts to manage the crisis.

"We want to have as close an accurate, real-time understanding of where the global hotspots are and where they are evolving," said Jeremy Konyndyk, an expert at the Center for Global Development think-tank, who led the Office of US Foreign Disaster Assistance from 2013 to 2017.

"The world is not going to get rid of this thing until we get rid of it everywhere."