After the United States and Canada and other countries, China-made poor quality masks also kicked the iron plate in France! French media revealed that many hospitals in France have decided to stop using KN95 masks made in China because health care workers questioned the effectiveness of the masks against viruses that are not as effective as the European standard FFP2 medical masks, and even believe that the masks are related to hospital clusters infected with Wuhan pneumonia (new coronavirus disease, COVID-19).
The French investigative news site Mediapart reported on the 22nd that last spring, the French government purchased 203 million KN95 masks from China at a high price due to a shortage of mask stocks, and these masks were recently distributed to hospitals in large numbers. A public hospital in the French seaside town of Hendaye received a shipment of Chinese-made KN95 masks last month, but a union representative at the hospital noted, “We immediately felt something was wrong with our faces. Fifteen days after the masks arrived, we had 20 people diagnosed with Wu Lung! The hospital decided in February to stop using KN95 because the earbands were problematic and too loose.”
According to the report, the French Surgical Federation (Collectif Inter-Blocs, CIB) and the Federation of Emergency Centers (Inter-Urgences, IU) jointly published a national consultation report during February, in which more than two-thirds of the 447 questionnaires returned, health care workers said they had used Chinese-made KN95 masks. It is suspected that KN95 masks may have something to do with the fact that hospitals have been experiencing clusters of infections since last spring, and that the number of clusters of infections has multiplied in the winter despite compliance with Epidemic prevention norms.
According to the report of the French Senate Commission of Inquiry on Epidemic Management, the French Ministry of Public Health (SPF) placed an order with BYD, a Chinese company headquartered in Shenzhen, China and listed in Hong Kong, between February and March of last year, in the urgent need for 500 million FFP2 masks, originally hoping to purchase European standard FFP2 medical masks. However, after Mediapart’s investigation, it was found that the Ministry of Health only required masks that “meet European specifications” or “meet Chinese KN95 equivalent specifications” in the contract. Later on, the two parties directly revised the contract and named the KN95 masks.
Now that the FFP2 masks are in sufficient supply, the government continues to distribute Chinese KN95 masks to hospitals, causing health care workers to question the government’s focus on clearing stocks, ignoring the more infectious variants of the virus or the increasing severity of infections in hospital clusters. The report questioned whether the government should not prioritize the use of FFP2 masks to health care workers after obtaining enough of these masks, and then distribute KN95 masks to groups with lower risk of infection.
According to reports, other European countries, such as Spain, immediately reinstated the European specification requirements after sufficient masks became available and ordered a ban on the sale of KN95 masks since October 1 of last year. Although the technical specifications of KN95 and FFP2 are not far apart, many public health guidance units have stopped issuing KN95, believing it to be less effective than FFP2, one reason being the fit of KN95 to the face. The same problem has occurred in several European countries such as Belgium and the Netherlands.
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