Arcuri: 'By the end of September only Italian masks'

In September there will be only Italian surgical masks on the market: Commissioner for Emergency Domenico Arcuri in the Social Affairs Committee in the Chamber has guaranteed this, underlining that for that date Italian production will be in full swing. "Why are Chinese masks still visible around? Poor Italian companies take some time to reach maximum production. They have been making them for a few decades in China. But in September there will be no more Chinese masks, because Italian ones will be enough our needs ".

Arcuri then recalled that in addition to the conversion of 135 companies that have started producing the Dpi, the state has started the production of the machines necessary to make the devices. "We have made an agreement with two large Italian companies that are producing 51 machines which, by the end of June, will produce 31 million surgical masks per day". And therefore, he concluded, "the conversion of companies and the production of machines makes us believe that, at the latest at the end of September, we will no longer depend on importing the devices from other places in the world".

As for the companies that have reconverted, Arcuri stressed that to date there are contracts with 19 companies "that have received orders from us for a billion and 823 million masks, at an average selling price of 42 cents". Orders "which are higher than the total of surgical masks that we have acquired in China from 15 suppliers, which will give us a total of one billion and 807 million masks".

"We are making an agreement with the Order of doctors - he announced - to supply surgeons and dentists with masks: we will guarantee them 10 million a month" of devices. As for the high school exams, "starting from 17 June and for ten days, we will guarantee all schools the masks for teaching staff, non-teachers and also for students who have to lose it on the street or forget it".

"With the Technical Scientific Committee, we also evaluate whether to introduce faster and less dependent on reagents to make swabs, such as open machines and kits. Italy is the country, among the largest, in which more swabs are made We do not do enough, however, because we are a substantially federalist state in health and the Regions have very different test behaviors. Extraction reagents, on the other hand, are lacking all over the world. Not only that, in Italy they exist 211 accredited laboratories for swabs that often use different combinations of amplification and extraction reagents: therefore,
a large number of products must be acquired ".

Space, finally, for another controversy: "I thank the Honorable Noja (Lisa Noja, of Italia Viva, ed) for the deepening on the system that provides the data. Far be it from me to declare that whoever disputes the data is dishonest: I always try to measure myself
against legitimate disputes, as long as they are informed. The commissioner makes the citizens of the work he does educated. But I do not find it consistent with the basic principles of the emergency to contest if you are not informed. that we make known, especially here, before contesting it. "