BEIJING — Twenty thousand pairs of protective goggles and 5,000 medical masks arrived in Wuhan at 8:10 pm on Jan 27 by air, officials of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said.

The materials, sent from Qingdao city in East China, will be distributed to medical personnel by relevant local departments as soon as possible, the officials said.

Wuhan, the capital of Central China's Hubei province, is where the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) epidemic started. The city is facing shortage of medical supplies including protective gowns and goggles.

The whole industry and information technology system has been mobilized to ensure the supply of key medical materials, the officials said.