UK stock of PPE outdated when Covid-19 struck

UK, (Daily Mail), May 2020 - Millions of pieces of personal protective equipment in the UK’s stockpile were out of date when coronavirus hit. A report found that over half of all surgical face masks in the national inventory had expired, along with 80% of respirators - 20.9 million respirators from a total of 26.3 million  

Faced with a shortage and unable to secure PPE from Chinese suppliers British government turned to alternative sources - ordering 400,000 gowns from a three-month-old T-shirt and tracksuit manufacturing company Selenga in Turkey on April 17.  

Now The Daily Telegraph has revealed that thousands of the protective gowns sit unused in a Heathrow facility, after they were found to be ‘useless’ against coronavirus.

  
Soon after this the first shipment of 67,000 gowns was made from Selegna, at which point an immediate halt was put on the rest of the order when officials discovered the gowns did not comply with the strict criteria provided by NHS procurement.