Hundreds of thousands of Chinese mouth masks have been recalled from Dutch hospitals
A large part of the mouth masks that the Dutch government has imported from China is unsound. Because the masks were already distributed to hospitals, the Ministry of Health held a recall.
This concerns almost half of a batch of 1.3 million so-called FFP2 masks, 600,000 pieces. Healthcare providers use it to treat critically ill patients with Covid infection. Faulty masks put doctors and nurses at risk.
The masks have been rejected because they do not meet the safety requirements. They do not fit well on the face or have membranes that do not function properly, the very fine filters that have to stop virus particles.
“The mouth masks that are not satisfactory have been retrieved,” the Ministry of Health told the NOS. The ministry cannot say with certainty whether no doctor has worn such a mask.
Hospitals own initiative
A number of hospitals had the masks tested by TNO on their own initiative. The batch of masks was distributed across the hospitals without being tested to see if they meet the quality requirements.
“When they were delivered to our hospital, I immediately rejected those masks,” said a person from a hospital who received a batch of defective masks. “If those masks do not close properly, the virus particles can simply pass. We do not use them. That is unsafe for our people.”
TNO is not allowed to provide information about the results and results of the tests. “That is contractually stipulated,” said a spokesperson.
Depressing quality
The rejected mouth masks are said to be of unfortunate quality. Not of FFP2 quality nor of the lesser level of safety FFP1. “Some sort of FFP0.8 at best,” said this source.
“We received 2400 of those mouth masks. They are still in storage, we have not used one,” says a spokesman for the Radboud umc. There it was seen that the caps did not fit well on the face.
A spokesperson for the Catharina Hospital in Eindhoven says that the shipment was immediately rejected. “This is not in itself, there is a lot of junk on the market. There are people trying to take advantage of the current crisis, at high prices.”
Sterilize as an artifice
The source says that the recall has been launched head over heels to get the unsafe masks out of circulation as soon as possible. Several other physicians closely involved in fighting the corona outbreak are concerned about the spread of unsafe protective equipment across the country.
There has been a shortage of good mouth masks for some time. That is why hospitals resort to emergency solutions. They sterilize already used masks and then put them on again.
On the advice of the American CDC, which is the counterpart of our RIVM, the Ministry of VWS has approved the Chinese quality standard KN95 for mouth masks. The minister reported this earlier this week in a letter to the House of Representatives.
Translated from Source
