The Health Ministry has begun a project to produce high quality masks that are not only washable so they can be re-used, but are also suitable for all of Israel's dynamic population to use.
The project began Monday morning with the initial production of 300,000 masks. The project line is 100% made in Israel, and employs over a thousand Israeli seamstresses.
"Thanks to the important venture of locally produced masks, we can are able to back our economy which is in dire need of support during these complicated times," said Health Minister Ya'acov Litzman.
With the goal of further preventing the spread of the virus, the masks will be distributed to residents living in areas with a high concentration of the virus by their local authorities together with the Home Front Command. "A mask can be used as personal protection to spread disease and infection," Liztman said.
With the intention of making mask wearing a norm, residents of these areas will be given instruction by the authorities on how to properly wear the masks. Recipients of the mask will receive a kit including three masks paired with an instructional leaflet printed in a variety of languages such as Arabic, English and Hebrew.The project is being led by defense systems and the Mossad in cooperation with textile experts, and industries that make products for the Defense Ministry. The Mossad has obtained over 10 million masks for Israel, as well as other medical equipment and hundreds of thousands of test kits.