This archive report was first published on 2 May 2021.
As the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread in Kenya, a worrying trend has emerged: substandard face masks are flooding the market, putting the lives of Kenyans at risk.
Between surgical face masks selling for Sh10 and Sh20, Peter Mwania, a mechanic in Nairobi, preferred the cheaper one. However, after being told by a vendor that the Sh20 mask was better protected, he realized that cheap is expensive in the long run.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), good protective face masks have several layers of fabric and are made to fit. However, a spot check by The Standard revealed that some face masks do not even have filtration layers.
Last July, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs) flagged three companies for selling substandard surgical masks and warned Kenyans against some brands. Kebs asked the manufacturers to recall all the substandard masks from the market and institute corrective actions.
However, unscrupulous operators are still producing face masks without observing the standards, yet Kenyans prefer surgical face masks to ones made of cloth. Many are going for the cheap masks, which might hardly protect them from droplets of Covid-19 due to poor filtration efficiency.
Kebs Director of Quality Assurance and Inspection Bernard Nguyo agrees that there are fake face masks which the agency was fighting due to non-compliance by manufacturers. He blamed many Kenyans for not caring to know which face mask to buy, yet all one needs to do is send a text message (for Sh5) by starting with SM# then permit number on packet to 20023 and a message will be sent with details of whether the mask is standard.
