Quebec nurse had to clean up after husband's death in Montreal hospital
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
Standing tall in bright red hazmat suits, five North Korean health workers stride towards an ambulance to battle with a COVID-19 outbreak that - in the presumed absence of vaccines - the country is using antibiotics and home remedies to treat.
The isolated state is one of only two countries yet to begin a vaccination campaign and, until last week, had insisted it was COVID-19-free.
Now it is mobilizing forces including the army and a public information campaign to combat what authorities have acknowledged is an "explosive" outbreak.
In an interview on state television on Monday, Vice Minister of Public Health Kim Hyong Hun said the country had switched from a quarantine to a treatment system to handle the hundreds of thousands of suspected "fever" cases reported each day.
The broadcaster showed footage of the hazmat team, and masked workers opening windows, cleaning desks and machines and spraying disinfectant.
To treat COVID-19 and its symptoms, state media have encouraged patients to use painkillers and fever reducers such as ibuprofen, and amoxicillin and other antibiotics - which do not fight viruses but are sometimes prescribed for secondary bacterial infections.
While previously playing down vaccines as "no panacea," media have also recommended gargling salt water, or drinking lonicera japonica tea or willow leaf tea three times a day.
"Traditional treatments are the best!" one woman told state broadcasters as her husband described having their children gargle with salted water every morning and night.
An elderly Pyongyang resident said she had been helped by ginger tea and ventilating her room.
"I was first scared by COVID, but after following the doctors' advice and getting the proper treatments, it turned out not a big deal," she said in a televised interview.
'LACK OF UNDERSTANDING'
The country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, said on Sunday - when state news agency KCNA reported 392,920 more cases of fever and eight more deaths – that drugs reserves were not reaching people, and ordered the army medical corps to help stabilize supplies in Pyongyang, where the outbreak appears to be centred.
KCNA said the cumulative tally of the fever-stricken stood at 1,213,550, with 50 deaths. It did not say how many suspected infections had tested positive for COVID-19.
Authorities say a large proportion of the deaths have been due to people "careless in taking drugs due to the lack of knowledge and understanding" of the Omicron variant and the correct method for treating it.
The World Health Organization has shipped some health kits and other supplies to North Korea, but has not said what drugs they contain. Neighbours China and South Korea have offered to send aid if Pyongyang requests it.
While not claiming that antibiotics and home remedies will eliminate COVID-19, North Korea has a long history of developing scientifically unproven treatments, including an injection made from ginseng grown in rare earth elements it claimed could cure everything from AIDS to impotence.
Some have roots in traditional medicines, while others have been developed to offset a lack of modern drugs or as "made in North Korea" exports.
Despite a high number of trained doctors and experience mobilizing for health emergencies, North Korea's medical system is woefully under-resourced, experts say.
In a March report, an independent UN human rights investigator said it was plagued by "under-investment in infrastructure, medical personnel, equipment and medicine, irregular power supplies and inadequate water and sanitation facilities."
Kim Myeong-Hee, 40, who left the North for South Korea in 2003, said such shortcomings led many North Koreans to rely on home remedies.
"Even if we go to the hospital, there are actually no medicines. There was also no electricity so medical equipment could not be used," she said.
When she contracted acute hepatitis, she said she was told to take minari - a water parsley made famous by the 2020 film of the same name – every day, and to eat earthworms when afflicted by another, unknown illness.
Home remedies had sometimes failed to prevent loss of life during epidemics in the 1990s, Kim added.
On a night she should have been mourning, a nurse from Quebec's Laurentians region says she was forced to clean up her husband after he died at a hospital in Montreal.
A North Bay, Ont., lawyer who abandoned 15 clients – many of them child protection cases – has lost his licence to practise law.
Members of the Bank of Canada's governing council were split on how long the central bank should wait before it starts cutting interest rates when they met earlier this month.
Brad Marchand scored twice, including the winner in the third period, and added an assist as the Boston Bruins downed the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-2 to take a 2-1 lead in their first-round playoff series Wednesday
Cuba's foreign affairs minister has apologized to a Montreal-area family after they were sent the wrong body following the death of a loved one.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
The federal government's proposed change to capital gains taxation is expected to increase taxes on investments and mainly affect wealthy Canadians and businesses. Here's what you need to know about the move.
Canada's Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was among the 1,700 delegates attending the two-day First Nations Major Projects Coalition (FNMPC) conference that concluded Tuesday in Toronto.
The daughter of a New Brunswick man recently exonerated from murder, is remembering her father as somebody who, despite a wrongful conviction, never became bitter or angry.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.