Israel secured some 61 million surgical masks, a million coronavirus testing kits and 811 respirators in the past month and a half, the Ministry of Defense revealed Thursday.
By Aryeh Savir, TPS
With the outbreak of COVID-19 in the country, the Israeli government established a joint team of Ministry of Health and Ministry of Defense members, including Israel’s Mossad espionage agency, which worked around the clock to supply the health system’s needs to fight the virus.
The Ministry of Defense’s procurement delegation in the US, the Ministry’s delegation in Germany, the International Transportation Unit and other entities were involved in the procurement operation.
Of the thousands of respirators that have been ordered and will be delivered to the health system by the end of the summer, 811 have already arrived in Israel.
Israel already has thousands of respirators and has developed alternative methods for converting existing systems into life support machines.
As of Thursday, only 85 coronavirus patients in Israel required a respirator.
Some 61 million surgical masks, 930,000 advanced N95 masks, about 1.4 million protective outfits for medical teams and about 403,000 disposable gowns, about one million corona test kits, and about 800,000 plastic protective visors for medical teams were brought to Israel in the past month and a half.
The latest shipment of about 80,000 test kits arrived at Ben-Gurion Airport on Thursday an on El Al flight from South Korea.
Over 30 Ministry of Defense cargo flights landed in Israel since the beginning of the operation.
Deputy CEO and Head of Purchasing in the Ministry of Defense, Avi Dadon stated that “the integration of forces between the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Health, the Prime Minister’s Office and the NSC is what allows us to stand, only a month and a half from the beginning of the procurement operation, with full warehouses and tens of millions of items in production, which will be gradually supplied to the Ministry of Health by the end of the summer.”
Israel is preparing for the next wave of morbidity in the coming winter, he clarified.
“We have invested hundreds of millions of shekels in the Israeli industry to ensure full production independence of masks, goggles, protective equipment and mainly respiratory production lines, even before the start of next winter,” he added.