Turkey’s prisoners produce coronavirus masks for hospitals

Personnels wearing face masks and gloves make production of protective face masks against the spread of novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic with the instruction of Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu at the sewing workshops linked to Gendarmerie General Command of Turkey in Ankara on 29 March, 2020 [Mustafa Murat Kaynak/Anadolu Agency]

Turkish prisoners across six different prisons produce 1.5 million single-use masks every month, the country’s Ministry of Justice announced yesterday.

“Inmate workshops that were recently launched in several Turkish prisons contribute to the production of 80 types of hospital supplies, including masks, nurses’ and surgeons’ clothing,” the ministry announced in an official statement, adding that in recent weeks, the prisoners had increased their production levels following the coronavirus outbreak.

READ: 42 patients discharged from hospital after recovery in Turkey

On Sunday, the Turkish authorities confirmed that the number of people infected by the virus had risen to 9,217, including 131 deaths and 105 recoveries.

At least 764,866 people worldwide have contracted the virus, of whom more than 36,864 have died and 160,148 have recovered, according to Worldometers. The World Health Organisation has declared the crisis to be a pandemic.

Unless otherwise stated in the article above, this work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. If the image(s) bear our credit, this license also applies to them. What does that mean? For other permissions, please contact us.