Pyongyang should make it easier for foreign aid groups to enter the country and help prevent a coronavirus outbreak, the UN’s top envoy for human rights in the DPRK said in a statement on Wednesday.

The statement, from UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in North Korea Tomás Ojea Quintana, comes amid growing concerns about what will happen if the epidemic spreads to North Korea.

The DPRK is known to have one of the weakest healthcare systems in the world, with one major study ranking the country last out of all nations for “rapid response and mitigation of the spread of an epidemic.”

“The outside world should be prepared to respond, and the Government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea should allow full and unimpeded access to medical experts and humanitarian actors, and relax restrictions on access to information,” Ojea Quintana said.

“Further isolation of the country is not the answer,” he added.

No cases of the coronavirus, known as COVID-19, have been officially confirmed in the North as of yet.

But South Korea has more than one thousand cases, and the epicenter of the outbreak is in neighboring China, where tens of thousands of people have been diagnosed already and more than two thousand have died.

In an apparent effort to stop the virus from entering the country, North Korea has shut down its borders and implemented strict quarantines, according to reports.

Foreign embassy staff at the Russian embassy are “not allowed to walk in the city,” according to Russia’s ambassador.

Some outside humanitarian groups have already begun entering the DPRK.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, was granted a sanctions exemption by the UN to bring equipment into the country for diagnosing and managing the disease last week.

This week, the UN allowed the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to bring medical supplies into the country as well.

Aid groups typically must apply for humanitarian sanctions exemptions before bringing equipment into the DPRK because some supplies may contain banned materials, like metal.

The Russian government also sent North Korea 1,500 kits designed for “rapid” diagnosis” of the coronavirus, according a statement from the foreign ministry in Moscow on Wednesday.

And earlier this month, the spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, which has been locked in a months-long diplomatic stalemate with North Korea over nuclear negotiations and other issues, released a statement saying she was “deeply concerned about the vulnerability of the North Korean people to a coronavirus outbreak.”

In that regard, the UN’s Ojea Quintana said, the outbreak may be an opportunity to help the isolated North and the rest of the world work together toward a common goal.

“The COVID-19 crisis, as severe as it is, is also an opportunity to initiate close cooperation between Democratic People’s Republic of Korea and the international community towards common goals,” he said.