CLEVELAND — Editor's note: the video in the player above is from a story published on January 13, 2021.
On Thursday morning, the Cleveland Clinic announced that it had discovered that a portion of the N95 masks purchased between November of 2020 and January 25 were found to be potential counterfeits.
“We were recently notified by a manufacturer that potential counterfeit N95 masks were in a small portion of our supply," a spokesperson for the Cleveland Clinic told 3News on Thursday. "We took immediate steps to remove these masks from our sites and have replaced them with approved supplies."
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The Clinic said that following an initial investigation, which included testing a sample of the N95 masks, it discovered that the masks were in fact, not effective.
"These masks were fraudulently branded and purchased through a third-party vendor," a spokesperson for the Cleveland Clinic said. "They were limited to two lot numbers from a specific supplier used at our Ohio locations between November 20, 2020, and January 25, 2021."
The Cleveland Clinic says that they have reached out to law enforcement and take the matter important very seriously.
"We are continuing to work with the manufacturer and its investigation to help prevent counterfeit products from entering ours and other healthcare systems across the country," the hospital concluded.
Check out the video below, published on October 28, 2020, to see why wearing a mask is so important to stop the spread of COVID-19:
