North Korea is scrambling to contain an outbreak of fever cases connected to the country’s first reported COVID-19 infections, with nearly 270,000 new cases and six deaths reported on Tuesday amid national lockdowns and military efforts to dispense medicines.

The country’s total number of cases of the unspecified fever reached 1.5 million, with 56 deaths, according to North Korea’s disease control headquarters.

“Urgent measures have been taken to immediately rectify the deviations in the supply of medicines,” state-run Korean Central News Agency reported Tuesday, one day after leader Kim Jong Un criticized health officials for failing to respond quickly enough to the emergency.