Federal government prohibits export of protective clothing

Lisa Vogel studied departmental journalism with a focus on medicine and biosciences at Ansbach University and deepened her journalistic knowledge in the master's degree in multimedia information and communication. This was followed by a traineeship in the editorial team. Since September 2020 she has been writing as a freelance journalist for

More posts by Lisa Vogel All content is checked by medical journalists.

The federal government forbids the export of medical protective clothing to other countries. This should prevent a bottleneck when the number of cases increases.

(lv / dpa) - In the fight against the corona virus, the federal government is pulling supplies of urgently needed medical protective clothing and is preventing exports to other countries.

The Federal Ministry of Health is now procuring such equipment centrally for doctors' surgeries, hospitals and federal authorities, as announced after consultations by the government's crisis team on Wednesday in Berlin.

Export only in exceptional cases

By order of the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the export of medical protective equipment such as breathing masks, gloves and protective suits abroad is also prohibited. Exceptions should only be possible under strict conditions, including in the context of international aid campaigns.

With the virus spreading, protective equipment is scarce around the world. Among other things, the statutory health insurance physicians had warned that the basic number of practices would not be sufficient nationwide if the number of suspected cases continued to rise.

NRW buys a million masks

North Rhine-Westphalia has meanwhile announced that it will buy a million protective masks for doctors and nurses. Help was also guaranteed to the district of Heinsberg, where there are numerous proven cases. "We organized over 7000 respirators, almost 3000 protective suits, 2000 test sets and sent them to the Heinsberg district," said NRW Health Minister Karl-Josef Laumann (CDU) on Wednesday in Düsseldorf.

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