FACE masks are being snapped up as concern grows about the threat of a swine flu pandemic, despite health experts warning that they offer the general public little protection against the virus.
The news comes as the Department of Health said supplies of the masks would be increased across the UK to try to protect health workers.
Yesterday, Scotland's health secretary Nicola Sturgeon said: "We have a stockpile of nine million surgical fa
ce masks and almost half a million high- fidelity respiratory face masks for use by healthcare workers.
"Action is under way at UK level to increase stockpiles of face masks."
Gordon Brown also told parliament that "several million more" face masks were being ordered for NHS workers and would arrive over the next few days and weeks.
Pictures from Mexico – where more than 150 people have died from confirmed or suspected swine flu – have shown people in the streets wearing masks. This has prompted people in the UK to investigate buying masks in case more people are confirmed with swine flu infection.
But Scotland's chief medical officer, Dr Harry Burns, yesterday said the masks offered little protection to the public. "Surgical face masks, in terms of the general public, are not believed to have much protective effect," he said.
"You wear a face mask, it becomes damp during the course of the day and that allows the virus to spread across your face.
"The evidence is that the pictures we see of people out in the streets of Mexico wearing these face masks is that it is unlikely to offer much protection.
"We do have surgical face masks available for people like healthcare workers if they have to have contact with one of these individuals who has evidence of infection for brief periods.
"But we would not be advising that the general public wear these masks."
Professor Hugh Pennington, a leading microbiologist based in Aberdeen, said masks could offer protection against someone coughing into your face, but smaller particles could still get through.
But he said one benefit of the masks was that they could remind people about the importance of covering their mouths when coughing and sneezing.
"I think the health departments are on to a no-win situation with masks," Prof Pennington said.
"They will be criticised if they buy them for wasting public money because there's no real evidence that they are really effective.
"But they would be criticised if they didn't buy them because people would say we need masks."
Prof Pennington suggested masks could even make matters worse.
"When you take it off and it's all sodden with your secretions, what are you going to do with it? How are you going to wash your hands?
"Wearing a mask could give a false sense of security."
England's chief medical officer Professor Sir Liam Donaldson said: "The scientific advice for face masks is that they are of very little value.
"First of all because they get moist and that enhances the risk of the virus transmitting, and because the virus is so small they can go through the pores."
He, too, suggested the masks could worsen the situation by making wearers wrongly feel they were safe.
On medical supplies websites, face masks range in price from almost £100 for 20 full masks with respirators, to about £20 for 50 simple surgical masks.
Airline fury over call for travellers to avoid going to MexicoAIRLINES have reacted angrily to a European commissioner's call for travellers to avoid non-essential travel to Mexico and affected areas of the United States.
The row came as the European Commission said it could not impose a Europe-wide ban on flights to Mexico, which has been urged by France to help curb the spread of swine flu.
EU health commissioner Androulla Vassiliou made the call over non-urgent travel yesterday on the eve of a meeting of health ministers to discuss the issue.
However, Association of European Airlines secretary-general Ulrich Schulte-Strathaus described the warnings as "irresponsible and ill-advised".
He said travel advisories could do more harm than good and said airlines were "well-prepared to handle health crises".
The official said the association, which includes British Airways and Air France-KLM, was informing passengers about the disease, risks and precautions.
"A priority now is to establish a co-ordinated European response and avoid a diversity of national rules and requirements," he said.
French health minister Roselyne Bachelot said she would push for the EU to suspend flights to Mexico at today's meeting.
But she added that flights from Mexico should be maintained so tourists could get home.
However, the European Commission said it was up to individual countries to impose their own restrictions.
An EC official said: "Member states can impose restrictions on their own merits, but there is no competence for a ban at EU level and the European Commission has no plans for restricting travel to or from Mexico."
Tour operators have already cancelled all charter flights from Britain to Mexico for the next week, including three from Glasgow. However, British Airways is operating its four-times-a-week service between Heathrow and Mexico as normal.
Other European airlines with feeder flights from Scotland are continuing flights to Mexico unchanged, such as KLM, whose Amsterdam hub has links from Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen.
Up to 14,000 Britons are believed to be in Mexico.
