The UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) has awarded a three-year order contract to the Scott Health and Safety plant in Lancashire to produce thousands of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) defence masks.

The company will manufacture a minimum of 300,000 masks to be worn by UK armed forces as a precaution for a biological or chemical strike, according to Global Security Wire.

The company’s global military and civil defence director Nigel Holmes said the masks have been tailored to suit the new challenges of chemical and biological warfare.

The order contract follows the revised UK national security strategy which listed foreign-based terrorist groups seeking to launch strikes against UK targets.