China has provided North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and his family with an experimental coronavirus vaccine, Reuters reported quoting a US analyst who cited two unidentified Japanese intelligence sources.

Harry Kazianis, a North Korea expert at the Centre for the National Interest think tank in Washington, said the Kims and several senior North Korean officials had been vaccinated.

It was unclear which company had supplied its drug candidate to the Kims and whether it had proven to be safe, he added.

“Kim Jong Un and multiple other high-ranking officials within the Kim family and leadership network have been vaccinated for coronavirus within the last two to three weeks thanks to a vaccine candidate supplied by the Chinese government,” Kazianis wrote in an article for online outlet 19FortyFive.