MBP Faculty Member Helps Secure Masks for Medical Staff
As COVID-19 spreads throughout the world and cases continue to rise, access to the proper Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) required by frontline medical staff to do their jobs safely has become a challenge.
Rising to the challenge, Dr. Gang Zheng, MBP researcher and Associate Research Director of the Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, has coordinated with an anonymous Chinese-Canadian philanthropist to bring 20,000 N95 masks to frontline medical staff at UHN.
N95 respirators are essential PPE for frontline staff due to their ability to filter out very small particles that could potentially contain the coronavirus, making the demand for these protective masks extremely high in hospitals and care facilities around the world.
Sensing a potentially lengthy wait for deliveries of additional N95 masks to UHN staff, Dr. Zheng seized the opportunity to be involved in getting this new PPE in the hands of medical workers faster. The speedy delivery of this much-needed equipment was made possible through the coordinated efforts of the anonymous donor, Dr. Zheng, MPP Ali Ehsassi and Air Canada.
The masks were manufactured by a certified N95 respirator factory in Shenzhen, China and delivered to the UHN on April 6, 2020.