The Dutch government has recalled 600,000 medical masks imported from China to fight the Chinese virus after the masks were revealed to have defective filters.
The Netherlands ordered 1.3 million masks from the communist nation to protect medical staff and patients from the deadly virus that emerged from China. The masks, which arrived on March 21st, were soon discovered to have faulty membranes, thus rendering them useless in preventing the spread of coronavirus.
The masks had already been shipped to hospitals throughout the country, but it has not been reported whether or not medical staff had already begun using the faulty Chinese masks.
“When they were delivered to our hospital, I immediately rejected those masks,” a hospital worker told the Dutch broadcaster NOS.
“If those masks do not close properly, the virus particles can simply pass. We do not use them. That is unsafe for our people,” the person added.
The government said that the masks had been shipped with the correct EU certification, meaning that the masks should have conformed to European health standards. However, an inspection revealed that the masks were defective.
“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,” a spokesman for the Dutch Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport (VWS) told De Telegraaf.
The small European nation has already recorded 640 deaths related to coronavirus, with 9,819 confirmed cases, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The Netherlands is just the latest European country to fall prey to defective medical equipment from China.
Spain, which only trails Italy in the number of recorded coronavirus deaths in Europe, received thousands of EU certified coronavirus tests that were revealed to be faulty. The tests were shown to have just a 30 per cent accuracy rate in identifying COVID-19 in patients.
The Spanish government has so far sent the communist nation €432 million ($471.4 million/£386.3 million) in exchange for medical equipment to fight the Chinese virus.
In the Czech Republic, as much as 80 per cent of the 300,000 rapid test kits imported from China have been found to be defective. The test kits, which are reported to have cost the Czech government €1.83 million, show false-positive and false-negative results when testing patients, according to Prague Morning.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been accused of trying to profiteer from the coronavirus crisis that was caused by its own malevolent actions, including online censorship and the arrest of doctors in Wuhan who tried to warn of the coming pandemic.
On Friday, Breitbart News reported that Chinese companies are using the crisis to turn major profits, with one face mask supplier saying the pandemic has given companies a licence to “print money”.
Follow Kurt on Twitter at @KurtZindulka
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.