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26 May 2020Asia-Pacific

Australia investigates counterfeit N95s in hospitals

The Australian government has ordered an investigation into the sale of counterfeit face masks in the country, following warnings from health experts and local media reports over the prevalence of fake equipment.

According to the  Sydney Morning Herald, Australian health minister Greg Hunt has instructed the country’s drug and medical devices regulator to investigate whether counterfeit masks had been sold to private hospitals.

The news comes after the newspaper  published a report on counterfeit equipment making its way into Australian hospitals after a loosening of regulations in March.

The Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA), the regulator charged by Hunt with leading the investigation, relaxed the rules on testing equipment prior to sale in March as the world faced an acute shortage of personal protective equipment (PPE).

"We have no screen at the moment to check if you're getting a real mask or a counterfeit," Jane Whitelaw, a member of the Australian Standards Committee, told the paper.

"And if people wear protective equipment and they think they work, they put themselves in closer proximity to infected patients—so they are at greater risk, because the particles are going straight through the mask,” Whitelaw added.

Kate Cole, an occupational hygienist based in Sydney, has been active in highlighting the sale of counterfeit N95 masks in Australia.

N95 is the standard in many countries for face masks used in clinical settings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cole  posted a video to Twitter demonstrating how some of the masks sold to private hospitals didn’t meet safety requirements—in particular, because the straps break too easily.

Some of the masks were marketed as meeting the KN95 standard, used in China. Both N95 and KN95 masks are designed to filter out 95% of airborne particles.

Earlier this month, Canada’s health department  ordered a recall of certain KN95 masks manufactured in China because they “pose a health and safety risk to end-users”.

“Health Canada cannot reasonably conclude that the benefits associated with having the KN95 Filtering Facepiece Respirator available in Canada, as currently labelled, outweigh the risks," a Health Canada bulletin said.

According to the department, the masks in question did not meet the required 95% air filtration standard.

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More on this story

Americas
6 May 2020   Criminal investigators in the US Homeland Security Investigations’ National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center have partnered with Pfizer, 3M, Citi, Alibaba, Amazon and Merck & Co to combat fraud and other illegal activity related to COVID-19.
Big Pharma
24 March 2020   Counterfeit face masks and unauthorised antiviral medication have been seized under Interpol’s annual Operation Pangea, as criminals seek to take advantage of the COVID-19 pandemic by exploiting demand.