Around 100 prisoners in five separate Dutch jails are to start making protective face masks as one of their routine jobs, the justice ministry has confirmed.

The project will start with simple cotton masks but will progress to better masks as soon as the proper supplies are available, a spokesman said.

‘They will not be suitable for hospital personnel because they will not be sufficiently sterile,’ the spokesman said. ‘But they can be used by prisoners with a cough or prison staff and others working in detention centres and institutions.’

The aim is to produce 50,000 masks a week.

Dutch prisons have stopped allowing visitors in an effort to keep out coronavirus and prisoners have been given larger phone allowances so they can keep in touch with friends and family.

So far there have been no cases of coronavirus recorded in a Dutch prison or juvenile detention centre.