The news shocked frontline medical staff in the Netherlands, who rely on high-quality products to protect them from contracting COVID-19.
Dutch officials have recalled 600,000 face masks manufactured in China because they did not meet quality standards, the government’s health ministry said on Saturday.
N95 masks – known as FFP2 in Europe or KN95 in mainland China – play a critical role in health care, as they are supposed to block over 90 per cent of airborne particles that may carry the coronavirus. According to the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport, the masks did not fit well and the filters did not function properly. It was not immediately clear whether the batch in question was given to the Netherlands as a donation or came through a commercial transaction.
The ministry was notified by inspectors that the quality of this shipment “did not meet the [quality] criteria” for the product. “Part of this shipment was delivered to health care providers, while the rest of the cargo was immediately put on hold and was not distributed further,” the ministry said. FFP2 face masks are supposed to have a filter efficiency of 92 per cent, according to European standards. Dutch broadcaster NOS cited a source saying that the Chinese face masks were “not FFP2 quality nor of the lesser safety level of FFP1 – some sort of FFP0.8 at best”, meaning they had less than half the filter efficiency required for the FFP2 designation.
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