Coronavirus: More than £60m worth of PPE arrives in North from China

A consignment of personal protective equipment (PPE) has arrived in Northern Ireland from China.

The North's Department of Health (DoH) said the more than £60m order was the result of a "joint endeavour" in conjunction with the Department of Finance and the Executive Office as well as the Northern Ireland Bureau and Invest NI in China, which had developed the supply line.

So far 1.5 million type 11R respirator masks have arrived out of a total of 63 million masks and 54.6 million pairs of gloves. The remainder of the order is to be delivered in a phased basis over coming weeks, the DoH said.

It is the first such delivery to arrive in the North from China since it emerged that an order which the North's finance minister, Conor Murphy, announced in March had been made jointly with the Irish government had not in fact been placed.

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At the time Mr Murphy said Northern officials on the ground in China would seek to procure PPE from a different supplier.

The health minister, Robin Swann, said the PPE products would only be issued to frontline staff after they are assessed, but he was "pleased to confirm that the reports on the new consignment are positive in this regard."