Seoul - North Korea made a bizarre claim on Friday saying that the country's first COVID-19 outbreak began with patients touching "alien things" near the border with South Korea, shifting blame to the neighbour for the wave of infections in the isolated country.

Announcing results of an investigation, the country directed people to "vigilantly deal with alien things coming by wind and other climate phenomena and balloons in the areas along the demarcation line and borders," the official KCNA news agency said.

Though the agency did not directly reference South Korea, North Korean defectors and activists have for decades flown balloons from the South across the heavily fortified border, carrying leaflets and humanitarian aid.

South Korea's unification ministry, handling inter-Korean affairs, said there was "no possibility" of the virus entering the North through leaflets sent across the border.

According to KCNA, an 18-year-old soldier and a five-year-old kindergartner who contacted the unidentified materials "in a hill around barracks and residential quarters" in the eastern county of Kumgang in early April showed symptoms and later tested positive for the coronavirus.

The KCNA said all other fever cases reported in the country until mid-April were due to other diseases, but it did not elaborate.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says the risk of people getting infected with COVID through contact with contaminated surfaces or objects is generally considered low, though it is possible.
-Reuters