Swiss authorities are trying to figure out what to do with a potential surplus of ventilators which they snapped up in the scramble for equipment to fight the coronavirus pandemic.

The Swiss stockpile of hygienic masks has also swollen to more than 200 million, with more on the way, the defence ministry said, confirming a SonntagsZeitung newspaper report.

The paper cited minutes from a government coronavirus task force as saying that cantonal authorities were sending excess ventilators back to the federal government, which did not have the resources to store and maintain them.

That meant cantons could keep them, sell them to other countries or donate them, perhaps to developing countries, the paper said.