EU halts delivery of 10m ‘poor quality Chinese masks

The European Commission said on Thursday it has suspended the delivery of 10 million Chinese masks to member states and the United Kingdom after two countries complained about the poor quality of the batches they received.

As part of its efforts to tackle the COVID-19 crisis, this month the European Union's executive arm started dispatching the masks to healthcare workers.

After the first batch of 1.5 million masks was shipped to 17 of the 27 member states and the UK, Poland's Health Minister Lukasz Szumowski said the 600,000 items Polish authorities received did not have European certificates and failed to comply with the medical standards required for their distribution.

"We have decided to suspend future deliveries of these masks," Commission health spokesman Stefan De Keersmaecker said.

"We will then see what action needs to be taken if there is indeed a quality problem with these masks."

According to De Keersmaecker, another member state, the Netherlands, has identified similar problems so far.

The whole stock of masks was purchased from a Chinese provider via an EU fund. It was set to be distributed in weekly instalments over six weeks.


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