Around 80,000 masks exported to Italy to help in the fight against COVID-19 received a quick green light in the process of passing through customs in Xiamen on Tuesday.

It was the largest batch of coronavirus prevention and control supplies to be exported via Xiamen Customs in Fujian province to Italy since the epidemic started, Xiamen News Net, a local new portal, reported on Tuesday.

The masks were delivered on Tuesday by air to Luxembourg, and then transferred to Italy. The shipment would have had to wait seven more days if they missed the flight due to reduced international schedules, the report said.

Customs also moved quickly to process a batch of 25,000 masks donated to Austria on Sunday.

Huang Siyu in Fuzhou contributed to this story.