More than 30,000 Face Masks Bound Abroad: Confiscated by Taiwan Authorities

On Thursday, a minimum of 30,000 surgical masks was found in 123 postal packages with different global destinations. The said packages were collected by Taiwan authorities, said the Aviation Police Bureau.


The operation was done at the mail processing center at Chungwa Post in Taipei on Thursday. During the operation, a total of 33, 225 face masks were collected. This is the effort of the government of Taiwan to restrict sending face masks abroad due to the increasing cases of the 2019-nCoV infection in the country.

According to the aviation police, in order to secure the face masks needs in the country, it is currently not allowed for its citizens to send them abroad. An exemption to this rule is the authorization accomplished from the Bureau of Foreign Trade of the Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA).

To answer the increasing risk of the Wuhan virus outbreak, MOEA had announced on January 23 that it will be placing a non-permanent ban on selling textile-based face masks. The ban also includes surgical face masks that have more than 94% efficiency in filtering microscopic particles. This restriction took effect from January 24 through February 23.


This restriction is also applicable to individual citizens who will be sending masks abroad.

The 2020 Coronavirus had already infected 10,000 individuals and took the lives of more than 200 people from China.