The head of the World Health Organisation (WHO) arrived in North Korea Monday on a scheduled visit to the impoverished communist state, China's official media reported.

During the trip, which ends Wednesday, Margaret Chan would visit hospitals and medical care establishments in the secretive state, Xinhua news agency reported, citing anonymous "sources" and without providing further details.

Chan's visit comes amid reports of a severe food crisis in North Korea. Good Friends, a Seoul-based welfare group with contacts in the North, said in February that around 2,000 people had starved to death there this winter.

A growing number of North Koreans have fled their homeland, which has relied on outside aid to help feed its people since a famine in the 1990s killed hundreds of thousands.

The WHO office in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, was not immediately available for comment.