A UN Security Council panel has approved sanctions exemptions to three aid agencies allowing humanitarian assistance to North Korea, its website showed Friday.

The North Korea sanctions committee approved a World Health Organization's request for exemptions on diagnostic equipment, including stethoscopes, microscopes, digital electrocardiograms and portable abdominal ultrasonography machines.

The committee also allowed the World Food Programme on Jan. 20 to deliver assistance worth $110,000, including 7,500 wheelbarrows, 5,000 shovels and 5,000 pickaxs for programs on malnutrition and food insecurity.

The Eugene Bell Foundation, a charity group providing medical aid for tuberculosis in North Korea, was granted an exemption for supplies necessary for its multidrug resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) program on Jan. 30. The detailed items were not made public.

The exemptions will be in place until late July.

The delivery of supplies into North Korea is expected to be trickier this year as the communist state has tightened its borders to stop the spread of the new deadly coronavirus. (Yonhap)