07/05/2020

In early April 2020, SAC quickly approved and released the English version of 13 national standards for coronavirus prevention. The standards are listed below.

 

Code Standard Identifier Standard Title in English
1 GB 19083-2010 Technical Requirements for Protective Face Masks for Medical Use
2 GB 19082-2009 Technical Requirements for Single-use Protective Clothing for Medical Use
3 GB/T 38462-2020 Textiles – Nonwoven Fabrics for Isolation Gowns
4 GB/T 38014-2019 Textiles－Protective Nonwoven Fabrics for Surgical Use
5 GB/T 32610-2016 Technical Specification of Daily Protective Mask
6 GB/T 38413-2019 Textiles – Test Methods for Filtration of Particulate Matter
7 GB/T 12704.1-2009 Textiles – Test Methods for Water-Vapour Transmission of Fabrics – Part 1: Desiccant Method
8 GB/T 5455-2014 Textiles – Burning Behaviour – Determination of Damaged Length, Afterglow Time and Afterflame Time of Vertically Oriented Specimens
9 GB/T 12703.3-2009 Textiles – Evaluation for Electrostatic Properties – Part 3: Electric Charge
10 GB/T 24120-2009 Textiles – Determination of Resistance to Water/Alcohol Solutions
11 GB/T 14295-2019 Air Filters
12 GB/T 34012-2017 Air Cleaners for Ventilation Systems
13 GB/T 24787-2009 Single-use Non-sterile Rubber Surgical Gloves – Specifications

 

Following the release, the above-mentioned standards will be presented by SAC as gifts to more than 30 countries such as Bangladesh, Serbia, Italy, and Iran. According to SAC, other countries will not be specifically listed here. The standards will be made public on the China-Foreign Countries Standards Information Portal  http://www.sac.gov.cn/sacportal/ to help Chinese enterprises of protective goods to resume production, serving for export and foreign aid.

 

According to their plan, SAC will continue to:

  1. Solicit demands for foreign-language versions of national standards that are urgently needed by frontline anti-epidemic departments, society and countries.
  2. Establish a mechanism for the rapid project initiation and release of national standards in foreign-language versions for urgent use in epidemic prevention and control.
  3. Develop foreign-language versions of national standards quickly to provide more technical support.

 

So far SAC has translated and released 23 national standards in English concerning COVID-19 prevention mainly covering face masks, protective clothing, textiles, gloves and air devices.

 

The release of the English version of these Chinese standards will help overseas stakeholders understand Chinese standards and make it convenient for their procurement of anti-epidemic materials. Also, it puts into practice the strategy of going global with Chinese standards. Since these standards are local to China and may somewhat differ from international standards, a technical comparison of these standards with foreign standards is necessary.