Dutch Hospitals Recall “Defective” China-Made Masks

• 600,000 China-made masks have been recalled by the Dutch government after they discovered that the FFP2 masks did not protect the face properly or had defective filter membranes.
• They tested the material again and found out that they do not meet the quality of FFP2 masks.
• The Netherlands has decided to stop all shipment from China.

The government of Netherland has recently announced that they issued a recall order for about 600,000 China-made FFP2 masks, after it found out that “it did not protect the face properly or had defective filter membranes”. The Dutch government has purchased 1.3 million masks from a Chinese manufacturer on March 21. After the recall, they also put the shipment of the remaining 700,000 masks on hold.

Authorities are currently struggling to contain the dreaded coronavirus and they’ve reported 9,700 confirmed cases of the disease. The defective masks is one of the problems they need to address since they’ve already distributed them to several hospitals in the country.

During the inspection process, experts revealed that these China-made FFP2 masks could not protect the face properly and its filter membranes were all defective. The mask filter is a very important feature as it stops the virus from entering a person’s mouth or nose.

The Dutch health ministry also said that the masks also failed the second phase of inspection.

“A second test also revealed that the masks did not meet the quality norms. Now it has been decided not to use any of this shipment,” the health ministry said in a statement.

China is currently sending millions of masks, test kits, and other medical supplies across the globe. So far, they have helped countries such as the Philippines, Serbia, Liberia, France, and Czech Republic.

Previously, Czech Republic also reported that 80 percent of the 150,000 coronavirus testing kits they received from China brought faulty results.

Netherlands has since vowed that they will inspect all medical supplies shipment before they distribute to hospitals. So far, several hospitals have already rejected the masks prior to the Health Ministry recall order.

When they were delivered to out hospital, I immediately rejected those masks,” a hospital doctor said.