EU plans to airlift face masks as coronavirus sees demand soar

The EU is drawing up plans for urgent air shipments of face masks and other medical equipment to Europe from China and other markets as the coronavirus outbreak triggers soaring demand and supply shortages. 

The proposals to speed up deliveries are revealed in a letter from Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton to member state ministers, in which he warns efforts by manufacturers to ramp up production have proved inadequate to the pandemic’s spread and that “airlifts” of equipment may be needed.

“Our first priority right now needs to be maximising the availability of personal protective equipment in Europe, especially masks and medical devices such as ventilators,” Mr Breton wrote in the letter, seen by the FT. “PPE manufacturers are doing their utmost. Some of them tell me that they have already doubled their production. But that will not be enough.” 

Mr Breton also highlighted “worrying” disruptions of cross-border equipment shipments within the EU because of restrictions still being implemented by some member states at their frontiers. 

Some states are furthermore continuing to impose constraints on exports of materials into other parts of the bloc despite calls for an end to the practice, he said, complaining that “unilateral and precipitated actions by member states” were impeding movements of essential goods. 

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The emergency plans to source equipment highlight how the escalating coronavirus crisis has strained the EU’s healthcare capacity and exposed its dependence on sources outside the bloc for some products. The letter from Mr Breton was addressed to Darko Horvat, the economy minister for Croatia, which holds the EU’s rotating presidency, and is to be distributed to other ministers ahead of a planned meeting on the topic on Friday. 

The commission is discussing ways of arranging air transport rather than sea freight because of the urgency of obtaining large numbers of masks needed by hospitals around the bloc. It also plans to finance the set-up of a stockpile of key medical equipment such as face masks and ventilators to help cope with a shortage of the goods in the bloc. 

Janez Lenarcic, EU commissioner for crisis management, told reporters on Thursday that the stockpile would be amassed and then distributed to governments on the basis of needs. It would include reusable masks, ventilators, laboratory supplies and potential vaccines when they become available. 

Brussels’ move comes after EU member states such as Spain and Italy have complained of shortages and warned their calls for assistance from other EU member governments are being ignored. The commission on Wednesday announced that it would receive more than 2m face masks and 50,000 testing kits from China to cope with scarce supplies. 

The commission has asked member states and industry for weekly information on the available stock of personal protective equipment, available production capacity and anticipated needs. 

An EU steering group on shortages of medicines has also been organised. The commission and the European Medicines Agency are due today to discuss with health industry representatives the potential for supply chain disruptions, places affected and timelines for possible shortages. 

EU officials say there are no recorded instances so far of drug shortages, apart from anecdotal reports of local stockpiling of paracetamol by members of the public. But the Covid-19 crisis has revived concerns about the lack of production of basic drugs, including paracetamol, in the EU. 

A paper prepared for a meeting of the EU pharmaceutical committee last week (March 12) noted that previous assessments suggested 90 per cent of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) for generic medicines were sourced from India and China 

“We are concerned that our dependency on imports of APIs and chemical raw materials will put increasingly at risk the supply of certain essential medicines and threaten the EU’s strategic autonomy,” the document said. 

“The recent outbreak of Covid-19 shows that a disruption of supply from India and China in the pharmaceutical value chain could present a major health security issue.”