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Chinese billionaire Jack Ma, founder of e-commerce colossus Alibaba, announced that the first shipment of his donated face masks and coronavirus testing kits was en route to the US.
“The first shipment of masks and coronavirus test kits to the US is taking off from Shanghai. All the best to our friends in America,” Ma said on Twitter in his first message on the social media platform.
His Ma Foundation earlier said 500,000 testing kits and 1 million face masks would be donated to the US, CNN reported.
“Drawing from my own country’s experience, speedy and accurate testing and adequate personal protective equipment for medical professionals are most effective in preventing the spread of the virus,” Ma said in a statement. “We hope that our donation can help Americans fight against the pandemic!”
As of March 2, Ma has donated a million masks to Japan and had been trying to ship another million to Iran as of March 6, according to his Weibo posts.
He later wrote that 1.8 million masks and 100,000 testing kits would be sent to Europe, including to Italy and Spain, two countries that have been especially hard hit by the virus.




