The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced an agreement with DuPont to expedite the delivery of critical personal protective equipment (PPE) needed for frontline U.S. healthcare workers responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. DuPont will deliver 450,000 TYVEK® suits to the United States from its Hanoi, Vietnam manufacturing facility this week. HHS anticipates receiving 2.25 million TYVEK suits over the next five weeks with an option to continue purchasing up to a total of 4.5 million TYVEK suits.
Through an existing government transportation contract, FedEx will transport the TYVEK suits from Vietnam to the Strategic National Stockpile in the United States, which will work with public health authorities in states, territories, Tribal nations, and certain cities, and with industry partners to ensure the TYVEK suits reach the healthcare facilities and workers most in need.
In order to make supplies available as quickly as possible and to deliver a steady flow to healthcare workers on the front lines, the U.S. government will ship raw material to Vietnam each week for the manufacturing facility to continue producing the TYVEK suits.